The faith of a modern Christian

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BT771 .075

Faith of a modern Christian /bv James

olin

3 1924 029 318 312

Cornell University
Library

The original of tliis book is in
tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92402931 831 2

THE FAITH OF
A MODERN CHRISTIAN

Works by the same Author

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST 6/-

THE VIRGIN BIRTH OF CHRIST 6/-

THE PROGRESS OF DOGMA 7/6

GOD'S IMAGE IN MAN 6/-

NEGLECTED FACTORS IN THE EARLY
HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 3/6

THE RITSCHLIAN THEOLOGY AND
THE EVANGELICAL FAITH 2/6

THE EARLY CHURCH: ITS HISTORY
AND LITERATURE i/- net

LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON

THE FAITH OF
A MODERN CHRISTIAN

JAMES ORR, D.D.

PROFESSOR OF APOLOGETIC AND SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY,
UNITED FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW

' Hold fast that which thou hast '

NEW YORK
HODDER AND STOUGHTON

B,\n^<&

Printed In Ecuell, Watson X Viney, Ld., Lmdan OMd Ai/hsbury, England.

PREFACE

r I IHIS series of brief papers on great
themes is, as every reader will see,
more of the nature of a personal testimony
to what is held to be of the essence of the
Christian faith than an attempt at a fully
reasoned statement of the grounds of that
faith. The papers are simple, direct, unpre-
tentious, and are addressed, not to scholars
and theologians, but to those who have
little time or taste for learned disquisition,
M'^ho yet are interested in the battle that is
going on in Church and ^^'o^ld about central
matters. To these an appeal is made by
a presentation, unencumbered by details, of
the broad facts on which the truths of
Christianity rest. The author's standpoint
is unambiguously that of a Cliristian be-

vi PREFACE

liever. The term " modern " applies to him
in the sense only that he hves in a modern
time, and can claim a fairly adequate ac-
quaintance with modern ideas. He is not
" modern " in the sense of the " modernists,"
who grant no place for the supernatural
interposition of God for man's redemption
in human history. The position of these
would-be monopohsers of the name " mod-
ern " he repudiates and seeks to confute.
To him the fact that God was in Christ,
reconciUng the world to Himself, is the
pivot certainty of time. It does not follow
that because the papers are brief and simple,
there is not knowledge behind them. The
author has done his part in the production
of works in which many things here assumed
on grounds shortly stated are discussed in
fuller detail. To these works he would
refer for further elucidation of points that
seem difficult or doubtful. His hope is
that this little book may have a mission
where more learned treatises would fail.

CONTENTS

I

PAGE

The Holy Sceiptuhes 3

II

The Problem of the Old Testament - . 21

III

The Gospels and Modern Criticism . . 39

IV
Miracles 61

V

The Incarnation 81

VI

The Teaching of Jesus . . . .101

viii CONTENTS

VII

PAGE

The Cross axo the Resurrection . .121

VIII
Jesus axd Paul . . . . . .141

IX
The Early Church ..... 163

X

Protestaxtism akd Roman Catholicism . 183

XI

Christianity and Modern Science . . 203

XII

The Present Outlook 221

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

T T is a fact to be weighed that many
religions besides the Jewish and
Christian have " sacred books " — " Holy
Scriptures," as they also would be disposed
to name them. It becomes, therefore, an
interesting question for Christians how and
why their sacred books should be put on
so exclusive a level, as inspired and authori-
tative, in comparison with others. The
claim is far from being one that is univer-
sally admitted. The Mohammedan, e.g.,
would not allow that his Koran was inferior
in quality or authority to the Christian
Scriptures ; as little would the other peoples,

4 THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

Persians, Hindus, Buddhists, who possess
sacred writings. The question is a fair
one : Is the exaltation of the Bible by
Christians not due to a prejudice born of
ignorance ? Does the advance of critical
and historical knowledge — especially the
knowledge of other religions — not tend
wholly to discredit it ?

If the Christian still holds by his Scrip-
tures as the Word of God, in a sense true
of no other group of books in the world,
he is plainly called upon to produce good
reasons for so doing. In the opinion of
many in his own circles he cannot do this.
The Bible, he is told, must take its place
with other writings of human origin, liable
to all the drawbacks and flaws of purely
human compositions — must at least be de-
throned from any special eminence as origi-
nating in a peculiar revelation or inspiration
of God. For many years the study of the

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES - 5

Bible has been so overgrown by critical
theorising, that its real character and purport
are in danger of being lost sight of ; and it
is worth while trying to look at it in its
broad features and essential message, without
troubling oneself for the time with critical
details.

If the Bible is to hold its place as it has
hitherto done, apart from and above all
other sacred books, it can only be on such
grounds as the foUoAving :

1. That it embodies a supernatural revela-
tion which the others do not.

2. That it possesses, because of this, a
structure and purposefulness which the
others lack.

3. That it exhibits spiritual qualities and
powers which are traceable only to a direct
Divine inspiration.

It vnR scarcely be denied by any intelli-
gent reader of the Bible that, whether these

6 THE HOBY SCRIPTURES

claims are admitted by ourselves or not,
they are the kind of claims which the Bible
makes for itself, and which Jesus and His
Apostles made for the older Scriptures in
their own day. The Bible, on the face of
it, professes to be the record of an historical
revelation of the most distinctly super-
natural character ; a " Thus saith the Lord "
pervades it from beginning to end ; it is
structural in character ; the Old Testament
fulfils itself in the New — "law and prophets"
in Jesus Christ ; and the presence and power
of the Spirit of God impart supernatural
qualities to its pages, even as a record. Let
only such passages as the following, which
need not be cited at length, be referred
to in illustration : Deut. iv. 1-8, 32-40 ;
XXX. 11-19 ; Joshua i. 7, 8 ; Psalm i. ; xix.
7-11 ; cxix. ; Jar. vii. 12-14, 25, 26 ;
Malachi iv, 4-6 ; Matt. v. 17, 18 ; xi. 9-15 ;
Luke xxiv. 44-49 ; Rom x. 1-4 ; 2 Tim.

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 7

iii. 15-17 ; Heb. i. 1 ; ii. 1-4 ; 1 Peter i.
10-12 ; 1 John v. 11-13 ; Rev. xxii. 18, 19.
It may now be asked whether these claims
can be truthfully gainsaid, and whether
they do not constitute a ground of dis-
tinction in kind between the Christian Bible
and aH Scriptures of other religions.

The first patent fact about the Christian's
Holy Scriptures is that they claim to embody
a special, supernatural revelation — the dis-
covery of a gracious purpose of God's love
for the redemption and blessing of mankind.
As just said, it cannot well be doubted that
this is what the Bible affirms to be true of
itself. God has not left the world without
personal revelation. He has made Him-
self known to man from the beginning.
When sin entered to separate the world
from God, and plunge it in moral and

8 THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

spiritual ruin, God did not leave it to its
destruction, but made its sinful condition
the basis for new and grander unfoldings of
His grace. Mercy was blended with judg-
ment, and stage by stage a great plan of
recovery from sin and its evils was unfolded,
which reached its culmination in the appear-
ance and work of His Son Jesus Christ — in
what we caU the " Gospel." This plan of
salvation is discovered with ever-growing
clearness in the Bible. What its nature is
subsequent inquiry may help to show, but
the reality of such a revelation is the ground-
fact of the Bible — the fact without which it
would not be a Bible at all.

It is granted that this supernatural re-
velation in the Bible is in many quarters in
these days denied — denied sometimes on
the ground of its impossibility, as if the im-
possibiUty were not aU the other way, that
a living, loving God should so tie His hands

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 9

in His own universe that He could not
approach His moral creatures for their help
as and how He desired ; and sometimes
by challenging its evidences. But what is
not granted is that there is any true lack of
evidence for those who approach the Bible
with real sense of need, and with eyes open
to behold its real character. The things
which the Bible records were not done in a
corner (Acts xxvi. 26), nor is the light of
its revelation so feeble, fluctuating, and
ambiguous, that it stands in need of elabo-
rate argument and attestation to make its
presence clear. The fact itself, writ large
across the whole face of Scripture, is so
outstanding, so manifest, so self-attesting,
that it comprises a world of evidences in
the very presentation of it ; and argument
can do Uttle more than vary the presenta-
tion, and invite the onlooker to see.

This, then, is the crucial point in the

10 THE HOEY SCRIPTURES

right estimation of Holy Scripture. Has
God truly spoken to mankind in any higher
way than through His natural revelation of
Himself in creation, in conscience, and in
His ordinary providence ? Has He entered
in a really living, supernatural manner, in
word and deed, into human history, reveal-
ing and executing His purposes of grace to
our race ? The Bible affirms ; unbelief de-
nies. The proof lies in pointing to the
thing itself. Here also is the first and
plainest distinction between the Christian
Scriptures and pagan sacred books. O
a plain, historically developed revelation —
least of aU of a revelation of Divine grace
— these books know nothing. They do not
even make claim to it. Revelation of a
kind they may allege, but of such revela-
tion, embodying a Divine purpose, extending
through ages of preparation and fulfilment,
and capable of being brought to historical

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES ^1

tests, they have not even the pretence.
There is no product such as the Bible
presents to justify their claim. This will
be more evident when we advance to the
next position.

II

The second fact about the Holy Scriptures
is that, owing to their embodying of a
Divine revelation, they possess a structure
and purposefulness which all other sacred
books lack. This is a fact about the Bible
which has often been emphasised. It has
been spoken of as its " organic unity," as
its " teleology " (ruled by an end), as its
" prophetic " character. Other sacred books
are a jumble, a medley ; as Carlyle would
say, " incondite" masses. They are without
plan, purpose, arrangement ; without be-
ginning, middle, or end ; devoid of progress.
No one reaUy familiar with them will dispute

12 THE HOEY SCRIPTURES

this description. The Bible (till at least
the critics have cut it up into fragments)
is, as any one can verify, the opposite of
aU this. It has a soul, a meaning, a unity,
a purpose, which binds its parts together,
and conducts, by intelligible steps, from one
stage to another. Genesis begins a story
which Exodus and the remaining books
of the Old Testament carry on ; germinal
prophecy is succeeded by more expanded
views, and finally by fulfilment. The
patriarchal stage gives place to the Mosaic ;
that to the prophetic ; the prophetic looks
forward to the Messiah and His Kingdom.
Jesus, when He comes, gathers up and
completes the whole ; in turn lays the
foundations of a spiritual kingdom which
shall endure for ever.

Thus it is that we have in Scripture a
revelation divine, historical, progressive ;
given, as the Epistle to the Hebrews says.

THE HOBY SCRIPTURES 13

" by divers portions and in divers manners " :
(1) in the Old Testament, "unto the fathers
by the prophets " ; and (2) in the New
Testament, through the Son and His Spirit-
guided Apostles" (Heb. i. 1-3; ii. 1-4; of.
Eph. ii. 20 ; iii. 4, 5). Such a phenomenon
occurs in no other book on earth. It sets
the Bible in a place and rank wholly by
itself. Isolated gleams of truth and duty —
let their source in the Spirit of truth not
be questioned — can readily be discovered ;
but nothing of this broadening of the light —
and such light — more and more unto the
perfect day. The effect varies with the
cause, for no other sacred book has a
revelation to convey like that which stamps
its character of uniqueness and purposeful-
ness upon the Bible.

It was above hinted that the tendency
of much modern criticism has been to
obscure, if not to obUterate, this character

14 THE HOEY SCRIPTURES

of unity and purposefulness in the Bible.
On this something may be said later.
Meanwhile it may be observed that the
element of purpose in the history is itself
the best safeguard against critical excesses.
This is a watermark in the narratives which
no violence can remove without destroying
the whole. As springing from the nature
of the revelation, it can, as little as the
latter, be explained by human imaginings
or inventions. Later writers could not
imagine it for themselves, then read it
back into the earlier story. It is too high
for them — this marvellous course of God's
ways with sinful man ; they could not attain
to it. Ere they could read it back, they
must get it for themselves ; and it is the
very facts which alone could give it to
them that are put in question. The con-
tent of the history is the guarantee for
its essential truth.

THE HOEY SCRIPTURES 15

III

But now a third fact emerges. The
revelation gives its substance to Scripture.
The purpose in revelation gives its unity
to the book. But there is something more
in the conception of Holy Scripture — a
spiritual quality, force, illumination, in the
record itself, emanating, as it could only
do, from a special presence of the Holy
Spirit, equipping and qualifying the sacred
writers for the special task. It is this
which, in ordinary usage, is meant by in-
spiration ; and, apart from theorising, and
discussions as to bearings on externals, it
is as obtrusive and verifiable a fact as
any other in Holy Scripture. How could,
indeed, revelation be preserved in its purity
without a record 1 Or how could a record
adequate to its purpose be produced without
a divinely given insight into the revelation
to be recorded, and an impartation of

16 THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

spiritual power to give just expression to
its meaning ? Thus even the record shines
in the hght of the Spirit ; is brought itself
within the scope of revelation. It is the
vehicle of revelation— the Word of God —
to us, as truly as was the spoken word of
prophet or apostle (e.g., Isa. i. 10 ; 1 Cor.
ii. 14 ; 1 Thess. ii, 13).

The human side of the record of Scrip-
ture, certainly, cannot be ignored. There
is not, nor could be, in Divine inspiration
any suppression of human genius, faculty,
or individuality. Limitations in the in-
strument condition receptivity for the
message. The treasure is in earthen
vessels (2 Cor. iv. 7). But the Divine
moulds the human to its ends, and in the
result God's strength is perfected in human
weakness (2 Cor. xii. 9).

The proof of inspiration can be sought
nowhere but in the record itself, and the

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 17

record again must be tested by its own
claims. Brought to its own tests, Holy
Scripture may confidently challenge the
strictest scrutiny of its claim to be what
Paul calls " God-inspired " (2 Tim. iii. 16).
" Have ye not read ? " was with Jesus, as
with His Apostles, the end of all con-
troversy (Matt. xix. 4). The marks by
which inspiration is tested are the same
in the Old Testament as in the New —
spiritual enUghtenment, sanctifying power,
guidance in God's ways, equipment for
holy service (Psa. i. ; xix. 7-11; cxix. ;
2 Tim. iii. 16, 17). That the Word of
God in Scripture possesses these powers —
is " hving and active, and sharper than
any two-edged sword " (Heb. iv. 12), makes
wise unto salvation, and equips for all
spiritual ends (2 Tim. iii. 15-17) — history
and experience amply attest. What pagan
scriptures possess a similar quality ?

THE PROBLEM OF THE OM)
TESTAMENT

II

THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD
TESTAMENT

"rnRUTH, like a torch, the more it's
shook, it shines." A shaking of
the Old Testament has been going on
vigorously through recent years, but the
sparks which fly in the process do not
always carry much illumination. It is
not the purpose here to discuss anew the
often-threshed-out questions of the critical
analysis and dating of the books of the
Old Testament. A more profitable task
will be to seek a solution of the funda-
mental Old Testament problem, viz., the
light in which it is to be regarded as a

21

22 THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

record of Divine revelation leading up to
Christ, along the lines of a believing study
of the Old Testament itself

On the general ci'itical question, it may
only be pointed out that what is known
as the " Higher Criticism " of the Old
Testament is far from being in the assured
condition which many would persuade
themselves that it is. Things have gone
so far in the critical schools in the disin-
tegration of the text, the rejection of age-
long tradition, and the rash propounding
of theories, that reaction in some degree
was inevitable. And reaction undoubtedly
there is. The prestige of the reigning
school of Wellhausen is giving way.
Archaeologists almost in a body are sever-
ing themselves from it. Individual ad-
herents are signifying their dissent from

THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, 23

it in important particulars. In Germany,
with the rise of the new " Babylonian "
school under Winckler, the placards are
changing. In Holland, Prof. B. D. Eerd-
mans, the pupil and successor of Kuenen,
long an adherent of the theory, noW form-
ally withdraws from the school of his
master, and subjects the whole documentary
hypothesis to a destructive criticism. The
theory based on the distinction of the
Divine names in Genesis, inaugurated by
Astrue in 1753, is allowed by an increas-
ing number of scholars to be no longer
tenable.^

The Old Testament, indeed, with its
thirty-nine books of all kinds — history, law,
poetry, prophecy, wisdom literature — pre-
sents a vast field of study, in which in-

' As examples, see the review of Eerdmans by Volz in
the German Theol. Literaturzeitung, 1908, p. 667, and the
note by Prof. Schlogl, of Vienna, in The Expository Times,
September 1909, p. 663.

24 THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

numerable questions arise that cannot be
settled without careful critical investiga-
tion. The book, nevertheless, as was sought
to be shown earlier, has a pervading unity
— a thread of Divine purpose which holds
its parts together, and relates them to one
another, and to the completed New Testa-
ment development. The problem of the
Old Testament is, at bottom, the discovery
of this clue, and its right application to
the elucidation of the history and religion.
Critical help is gladly welcomed, but it
cannot be permitted to subvert the essential
character of the revelation, or to turn
order into confusion by rejecting the
plainest indications of the book as to its
own origin and meaning. It is not always
sufficiently borne in mind that the Old
Testament has a witness to bear to itself,
affecting in numerous respects the right
understanding of its message. It should

THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 25

be the student's business to attend primarily
to this witness, and, where possible, to
regulate his criticism by it. It may turn
out that this method, as it is the simplest,
is likewise the sanest, and the most satis-
fying, if the object is to set the Old
Testament in its proper light.

II

In what was said on Holy Scripture it
was seen ; (1) That the Old Testament
professes to be the record of a continuous,
supernatural, historical revelation to early
mankind and to Israel ; (2) That the pre-
sence of this revelation imparts to the
contents of the book a unique coherence
and unity — a structure ; and (3) That the
Ught and power of the revelation are
manifest in the record, and evince a work
of the Spirit in that also. The bearing of
these positions on the proper understanding

26 THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

of the Old Testament may now be more
specially illustrated.

The Old Testament claims, beyond
question, to be the record of a supernatural
Divine revelation. This is obvious on the
most cursory reading of its pages. If the
fact is denied, the whole attitude to the Old
Testament is altered. From being the
story of a Divine revelation, it becomes
the record of a human religious develop-
ment — remarkable, no doubt, but involving
no element of superhuman interposition.
All is explicable from the laws of the
development of the human spirit. It is
an " evolution " from small natural begin-
nings to nobler conceptions of God and
His ways, still not beyond the power of
man's own spirit to attain. Miracles — the
supernatural element generally — are elimi-
nated. This is the newer " historical " way
of interpreting the Old Testament, which

THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 27

some assure us is the only intelligible way
for thinking men.

It is, however, not the Bible's own way.
The basis of the Biblical revelation is a
" Thus saith the Lord," not a " Thus thinks
man." God, on the Bible's showing, enters
actually, in speech and deed, into history,
and gives to man the knowledge of Him-
self and of His ways which is needed for
his enlightenment and progress. This
makes all the difference of a change from
natural evolution to supernatural revela-
tion.

The revelation in the Old Testament is
truly supernatural, is continuous, is his-
torical. The Revealer, from beginning to
end, is the one true God, the Maker of
heaven and earth, the Sole Ruler in pro-
vidence and grace. It is this God made
known to the fathers by His name El
Shaddai (Gen. xvii. 1), revealed to Moses

28 THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

by His name Jehovah (Exod. iii. 14, 15 ;
vi. 2, 3), who chose Abraham and his seed
to be the bearers and guardians of His
special revelation to the world, who formed
His covenarit with Israel at Sinai, and who
spake later by His Spirit in the prophets,
preparing the way, in the fulness of times,
for the fuller revelation in His Son (Gal.
iv. 4). The content of the revelation, as
before seen, is His purpose of grace to
mankind.

It is a different account which is given
on the development hypothesis. There a
beginning is made with polytheism — or
something even lower — not with mono-
theism. The early Israelites shared the
superstitions and low religious beliefs of
their neighbours. The Jehovah (Yahweh)
they worshipped was a storm-god of Sinai,
a being who had as, little reaUty as the
gods of Egypt or Canaan. The prophets

THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 29

rose to higher conceptions, and introduced
the behef in one God, whom they identified
with this older Yahweh of the popular
belief. Of early revelation, covenants, pro-
mise, there can be no mention.

Unfortunately, this newer reading of the
history not only contradicts the Bibles own
account — destroying the reality and con-
tinuity of the revelation — but is in conflict
with the facts to be explained. Everywhere
in the Old Testament — in Genesis, in
Exodus, in later books— Jehovah appears
as the one true God, sole and supreme. It
is this one God who creates the world,
who creates man, who judges the world by
a flood, who rules in His providence in
Canaan, in Egypt, in the wilderness — every-
where, over all. It is the God of all the
earth who chooses Israel (Exod. xix. 5).
Increasingly, accordingly, there is observable
a tendency to give up this extreme part of

30 THE PROBLEM OF THE OED TESTAMENT

the critical hypothesis, and to push the
knowledge of the one God back to early —
at least to Mosaic — times. Some would
derive it even from Babylonia. The Bible
derives it from God's own self-revelation,
when the knowledge of Himself was being
lost and obscured by growing heathenism
(Joshua xxiv. 14). Certain it is that the
prophets knew nothing of this first dis-
covery of the truth of the one God with
which they are credited. A recent critical
writer, B. Stade, admits this unreservedly.
In his Biblical Theology of the Old Testa-
ment he writes : " It is characteristic of
these prophets that they had no inkling
of how new and unheard-of their thoughts
were. They give them out as if they were
self-evident to their hearers, and had been
earher the recognised content of the rehgion
of Jehovah. They knew no other con-
ception than their own, which flowed to

THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 31

them from divine revelation." ^ Most vk^ill
feel that probably the prophets knew their
own history as well as their critics do.

Ill

If the continuity of the Biblical revelation
is authenticated by impartial investigation,
the structwal unity which this imparts to
the Old Testament is no less clearly made
good. The history in the Old Testament
follows a natural, weU-defined course. The
earliest period shows the origin of sin,
the dawn of promise, the distribution of the
races of mankind, leading up to the call
of Abraham, for the preservation of the
truth, and the founding of a kingdom of
God upon earth. Patriarchal promise is
followed by historic fulfilment in the Mosaic
age, with laws and ordinances suited to the
ends in view. The monarchy inaugurates

' Page 206.

32 THE PROBLEM OF THE OtD TESTAMENT

a new era of prophecy and promise. The
hght of prophecy broadens and grows
brighter as the fortunes of the natural
Israel decline. Every finger points forward
to a new covenant, when redemption will
be complete, the Spirit will be given, and
God's glory will fill the earth under the
reign of the Messiah.

This structural unity of the ancient books
criticism again subverts by its bold analysis
and amazingly free recasting of the history
to suit its own presuppositions. The patri-
archal history it rejects altogether ; the
Mosaic it converts into legend. What is
at the beginning it puts at the end. The
books are of late date, and correspondingly
untrustworthy. The Levitical legislation,
in particular, is a work of the Exile. Old
usage may be embodied in parts of it, but
as a divinely given system of laws it never
was heard of before, and its characteristic

THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 33

institutions are quite new. This is the
theory ; but once again the facts are proving
too strong for it. The analysis is being
questioned, the " documents " are doubted,
the scheme which puts the law later than
the prophets is being denounced as arbitrary.
All this, with important consequences for
the value of the histories, will soon be more
heard of than it is.

But even as the case stands, how glaringly
improbable is the new construction ! Nehe-
miah viii. gives the account of the intro-
duction of the Pentateuchal law through
Ezra, and nothing is plainer than that it
was no new law that Ezra brought in, but
a law understood and received by every one
as the genuine law of Moses. Could the
people be deceived ? Could priests and
scribes, who knew something of their past
history, and had their elaborate genealogies,

be deceived ? Is it conceivable that an

3

34 THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

immense, complex code, imposing heavy
burdens in tithes, and a not less heavy
yoke of ritual, could be laid upon a whole
community, keenly divided in interests and
refractory in spirit, without a murmur of
dissent, or the least opposition to its adop-
tion and solemn ratification by covenant ?
The situation has only to be fairly faced
to see the impossibility of such a thing
being carried through. The laws were
evidently old, and there is no good reason
for doubting that in substance, if not in
large part in form, they go back to the
age from which they are declared to have
come. A similar argument might be applied
to the Deuteronomic law, which recapitu-
lates mainly the laws of the Book of the
Covenant in Exodus xx.-xxiii. The Bible's
own structure still approves itself as the
best.

THE PROBEEM OF THE OED TESTAMENT 35

IV

It does not fare otherwise with the claim
to inspiration in these ancient Scriptures.
The element of inspiration in the Old
Testament is evinced by the very manner
in which the truths, the historic stages, the
prophetic ideals, the dominating purpose of
the revelation are preserved in its pages.
What can exceed in grandeur of religious
conception the account of the Creation in
Genesis i. ? It lays the basis for all that
is told afterwards of God's relation to His
world. Not less remarkably does the narra-
tive of the Fall — whatever differences may
arise as to its interpretation in detail —
furnish the ground for the whole picture
in the Bible of a world turned aside from
God, and lying under His displeasure
(Gen. vi. 5 ; Psa. xiv. ; Isa. i. 2). Cove-
nant and promise are penetrated with a

36 THE PROBLEM OF THE OED TESTAMENT

prophetic spirit which events justify. What
magnificence and dramatic power are in
the story of the exodus and of God's lead-
ings of Israel ! The prophets — is not their
inspiration manifest ? The lofty strain of
prediction that exalts them hardly makes
it more manifest than the grandeur of their
direct addresses to their people. The whole
Old Testament moves forward as under a
resistless impulse to the New, and finds its
resting-place in it. The Psalms — no sole pro-
duct of the Exile — breathe the very essence
of the religion. Doubtless there are limi-
tations, defects, imperfections in the Old
Testament revelation which only the New
Testament could remove. This is to be
freely acknowledged. But the great fact of
an inspired Word stands clearly out to view
even in that ancient record.

THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM

Ill

THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM

/CRITICISM at every period inevitably
reverts to the Gospels, for it is in
them that the kernel of the whole Bible is
to be sought. If God has spoken anywhere
to man, it is in the person of His Son.
In Christ's life, Christ's words, Christ's
character, Christ's witness to the Father, we
have the essence and acme of the whole
Divine self-revelation. If, then, it is desired
to do away with this revelation — to chal-
lenge its foundations or world-wide signifi-
cance—it is the Gospels which must always
bear the final brunt of the assault. For
it is through the Gospels alone that we

39

40 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM

know Christ. If they can be trusted, they
leave us in no doubt as to who He is, what
He claimed, how He lived, what He said,
how He acted, and the sequel of His life
in death and resurrection. The picture is
no ambiguous one. Its main features are
patent to every reader. The figure of Jesus
in the Gospels is the corner-stone of the
Christian religion. What must first be
done, if the revelation is to be got rid of,
is to dislodge this stone.

It is therefore a fact of no ordinary
interest that, in our own age, as in earlier
periods, it is the Gospel history on which
criticism is again concentrating. The last
few decades, as has been seen, have wit-
nessed a keen struggle o\ev the Old Testa-
ment — a struggle by no means ended. But
in that struggle the smoke is clearing away,

THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 41

and the issues are becoming more defined.
People are able to take sides, and one thing
helping them to take sides is just that the
stress of the conflict is again shifting from
the Old Testament to the New. The
Gospels have become once more the centre
of interest. The methods employed with
such destructi\'e success upon the Old
Testament are being applied with a bold-
ness that takes the breath away to the
records of the life of Christ. It would be
easy to mention names and books, but this
is not necessary. Here is the fact which
brings many to a pause. They are not
supremely concerned when it is the distant
figures and transactions of the Old Testa-
ment — Abraham, Moses, the law-giving —
that are brought into question. But they
wake to the gravity of the situation when
they find the most famihar facts and car-
dinal testimonies of the Gospels resolved

42 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM

by the same methods into cloudshapes of
legend.

History here repeats itself. Three-
quarters of a century ago an able and
determined assault was made upon the
Gospels, first by Strauss, in his Life of
Jesus, then by what is known as the
Tubingen school of criticism (under Baur).^
The result of this assault was, in Strauss's
case, to resolve the whole content of the
Gospels into myth, and, in the hands of
Baur and his followers, to carry down most
of the literature of the New Testament to
the second century, and to discredit its
historical worth. Then came the reaction,
till, step by step, the Gospels and Epistles
were reinstated in their place of honour,
and the Tubingen school and its methods
were themselves discredited. It was thought

' See the History of the Tubingen School in the author's
Bible Under Trial, oh. ii.

THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 43

that the battle for the Gospels had been
finally won. A vain dream ! The attack
is one which must repeat itself so soon as
ever a new vantage gromid is thought to
be found. This has been furnished by the
rise of the new school of historical criticism,
with its sharpened methods of analysis and
disintegration. Tried first, as has been said,
on the Old Testament, these methods are
now brought to bear on the Gospels, and
the Jesus of faith disappears, to give place
to a peasant-prophet, fi"om whom all super-
natural attributes fall away.

II

For this is the next thing to be remarked,
that the principle of these successive attacks
upon the Gospels, however diverse their
outward form, is all through one and the
same. It is the old recurring question
of the-possibility ofia supernatural entrance

44 THE GOSPEBS AND MODERN CRITICISM

of God into human history. One must not
be deceived by the use of terms. The word
" revelation " may be used ; but it is a
revelation in nature and through natural
means only^ — not beyond it. The motto
of the new criticism is : " Nothing beyond
the natural order." This, it is obvious,
excludes the bulk of the contents of the
Gospels, and the most distinctive claims
made for Jesus, at a stroke. His miraculous
birth. His resurrection, the miracles of the
ministry between, His higher claims — even
the sinlessness of His Person — are swept
aside. The Jesus that is left is a merely
human being — " nothing more, nothing less."
The methods by which this result is reached
are called " historical " ; but there is nothing
genuinely historical about them. The end
is already postulated at the beginning, and
the criticism simply brings into play an
array of expedients to justify the foregone

THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 45

conclusion. It is no longer the narrative
as given which is the main thing, but the
critic's hypothetical construction of the
genesis of the narrative from something
quite different, which occupies the fore-
ground. Texts are manipulated, disavowed,
explained away ; historical evidence is dissi-
pated or disregarded, as the exigencies of
hypothesis require. Pages might be filled
with illustration,' but it is more important
to indicate what is to be said in a positive
respect in reply to such egregious treatment
of the sacred records.

It is not overlooked that there is a
genuine criticism of the Gospels, reverent
in spirit, and following proper methods,
from which immense gains are surely reaped
for the better understanding of the Gospels.

■ See again The Bible Under Trial, chs. vii. and viii., and
the author's works on The Virgin Birth and The Resurrection
of Jesus.

46 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM

Interesting problems arise with regard to
the relation of the first three Gospels to
each other (the Synoptical problems, as they
are called), to the sources from which these
Gospels drew their materials (oral or written ;
dependence of one on another), and to the
relation of all three to the Fourth Gospel,
so different in structure and style. Into
these questions, which lie within the sphere
of faith in the Gospels, it is not proposed
here to enter. The more weighty matter
is : How far do the Gospels — the first three
(Synoptics) and the Fourth Gospel — justify
the claim made on their behalf to be genuine
apostolic productions,^ and trustworthy re-
cords of the sayings and doings of Him
whom we call Master and Lord ? On this,
the central and essential issue, for the help
of faith, a few words may be said.

' That is, works of Apostles aud of men of the apostolic
circles.

THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 47

III

What is to be said on the historical
question can be briefly summarised. Pre-
judice apart, it would be difficult to con-
ceive a stronger case, on the ground of
historical tradition, than that for the genuine
and apostolic character of our four Gospels
— Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These
Gospels are at the head of the writings
which, as the historian Eusebius tells, were
never " controverted " in the Church. They
are undoubtedly the Gospels which, in
Justin Martyr's time, were, along with the
prophets, read Sunday by Sunday in the
assembhes of the Christians. A disciple of
Justin's, Tatian, made a " Harmony " of
the four, which has been recovered. The
Fathers in the end of the second century
used the Gospels as inspired productions,
the authority of which was beyond all

48 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM

question. They knew no other Gospels
to be put in the same rank as they. They
are found in all hsts of the canonical
writings. They appear in all versions into
other languages — Latin, Syriac, Egyptian,
etc. Moreover, there is a firm tradition
connecting the Gospels with their respective
authors. Reasonable doubt cannot rest on
the ascription of the Second Gospel to John
Mark of .Jerusalem, companion of both Paul
and Peter. Luke's authorship of the Third
Gospel and of the Acts has recently re-
ceived a splendid vindication from Professor
Harnack, of Berlin, at the cost of severance
from the school of criticism with which he
was before associated. That Matthew
stands behind the First Gospel seems a fair
result of criticism, though there is yet
dispute as to whether his relation to it,
in its present Greek form, is mediate or
immediate. This, at least, is certain, that

THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM -49

the Greek Gospel was from the first, and
always, accepted in the Church as repre-
senting the genuine Gospel of Matthew.
In the words of Westcott : " All early
writers agree that Matthew wrote in Hebrew
[Aramaic]. . . . At the same time, all equally
agree in accepting the Gospel of Matthew
without noticing the existence of any doubt
as to its authenticity." ^

It is not different with the apostohc
authorship of the Gospel of John, keenly
as that has been controverted. External
and internal evidence ahke point decisively
to the Gospel as the genuine work of the
beloved disciple. Dr. James Drummond
(Unitarian) does not exaggerate when he
says : " The external evidence is all on one
side."'' The trustworthiness of the Gospel
is touched on below.

' Introduction to Gospels, pp. 223-4.
' Fourth Gospel, p. 614.

50 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM

The conclusion to which this leads is
that, in accordance with the testimony of
tradition, the Gospels are genuine apostolic
documents. They fall within the apostolic
age, and are of apostoUc origin. While
not themselves Apostles, the writers (Mark
and Luke) still convey the apostolic testi-
mony given to the Church. Mark is
described as the " interpreter " of Peter.
Luke records that which has been delivered
by those " who from the beginning were
eye-witnesses and ministers of the word "
(i. 2). The basis of the Gospel is rock,
not sand.

It is not desired to argue from au-
thorities ; but in view of frequent assertions
as to the trend of criticism, two leading
names may be mentioned. Professor Har-
nack, of Berlin, will be admitted to be
the highest living authority on Early
Church history and literature. But Har-

THE GOSPEES AND MODERN CRITICISM 51

nack declares that the whole tendency of
recent research has been to re-establish the
authority of tradition as respects the Xew
Testament books, and to show that "the
earhest literature of the Church is in its
principal points and in most of its details,
historically regarded, veracious and reli-
able." ^ In regard to Luke's authorship of
the Gospel and Acts he claims to prove
" that criticism has gone wi-ong, and that
tradition is right." - Who, again, is, out of
sight, the most learned scholar in New
Testament criticism ? AVithout doubt.
Professor Zahn, of Erlangen. But in
his magnum opus on this subject, a trans-
lation of which has just appeared, Zahn
confirms what has above been affirmed of
the age and apostolic character of the Four
Gospels.

' Preface to Chronotogie.
' Lucas der Artz, Preface.

52 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM

IV

The trustworthiness of the Gospels, which
is the main thing, is already largely es-
tablished when one has made good their
substantial apostolic origin. For years the
Apostles wrought and taught together in
Jerusalem. There, it may be assumed,
their testimony took a relatively fixed form
for catechetical purposes. In this form,
orally, or in written shape, it was com-
municated to the various Churches, and
finally found embodiment in the written
Gospels (Luke i. 1-4). Resting, as the
corroborative testimony of the first three
evangelists shows, on first-hand apostolic
witness, it has the highest guarantee of
truth. There was no time for the ex-
tensive growth of legend, and the presence
of elements contradicting the recognised
tradition would at once have been de-
tected and condemned.

THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 53

To rest the trustworthiness of the Gos-
pel narratives merely on historical evidence,
however, is to put it on all too low a
ground. There is an evidence internal to
the matter itself which is even more
potent in producing conviction of its
truthfulness. Had no external evidence
existed — had the Gospels come into our
hands for the first time without any
knowledge of the circumstances of their
origin — we should still have been entitled,
nay, constrained, to receive them as
authentic. Who could have invented the
sayings ascribed to Jesus — His parables,
the Sermon on the Mount, the words of
inimitable freshness, beauty, originality, and
spiritual power which form the substance
of the record ? Mr. J. S. Mill was not a
man of deep spiritual insight, but he wrote
with truth : " It is no use to say that
Christ as exhibited in the Gospels is not

54 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM

historical, and that we know not how
much of what is admirable has been super-
added by the traditions of His followers. . . .
Who among His disciples or among their
proselytes was capable of inventing the
sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining
the life and character revealed in the
Gospels ? " Not one.

This last sentence of Mr. Mill's touches
the supreme guarantee for the historicity
of the Gospels — the image of Jesus Him-
self which they enshrine. If that image-
so unique, perfect, original, divine — is not
historically real, how did it originate ?
Who conceived it, and reduced it to this
perfect historical form in word and act?
Is Christ a creation of His own Church, a
Church gathered out promiscuously from
Jews and Gentiles, with no historical tra-
dition to work on — a Church which even
yet, after nineteen centuries, is only dimly

THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 55

rising to the adequate apprehension of the
Master's thoughts and ideals ! The sup-
position is absurd. But that image is con-
structed from the materials in the Gospels.
If they vanish, it vanishes also. The Christ-
figure in the Gospels is the sun-clear
demonstration of the truth of the narra-
tives. How simple, yet how sublime it all
is ! How reticent in detail, yet throwing
into grandest relief the central Personality !
How free from ostentation, yet producing
the overwhelming impression of holiness
and greatness ! Not only is the record
true ; it could only be there as the product
of God-inspired minds !

A marked contrast exists in scope and
style between the first three Gospels and
the Gospel of John. On this ground the
historicity of the Fourth Gospel is often

56 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM

denied. Criticism here is becoming more
sober, and is recognising more freely the
essential oneness of the picture in the
Synoptics and in John (e.g., Bousset). The
contrasts, though real, may easily be ex-
aggerated, and admit of explanation on
simpler grounds. John's is the latest of
the Gospels, and presupposes the others
as well known. It does not, therefore, go
over the ground they had already covered.
It confines itself largely to matters drawn
from John's personal recollections, chiefly
the Judasan ministry, the visits of Christ
to Jerusalem, and His last private dis-
courses to His disciples. These are re-
produced as they had passed through the
crucible of much thought and reflection in
the evangelist's own mind, and an inter-
pretative element is blended with them,
which it is sometimes difficult to disengage
from Christ's bare words. It aims, too, at

THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 57

a doctrinal result — the confirming of faith
in Jesus as the Divine Son of God (xx. 31).
Withal there need not be the slightest
hesitation in accepting the Gospel as a
veracious record of the thoughts, words,
and deeds of the Master, as John knew
and loved Him. It is, as saints in all ages
have felt, the truly " spiritual " Gospel, the
unveiling of the eternal Christ in the his-
torical Jesus. Nothing is wanting to the
humanity. The Jesus of John's Gospel is
born, suffers, dies ; thirsts and is weary ;
sorrows, sympathises, weeps ; experiences all
true human emotions. But He is none
the less everywhere manifest as the Word
made flesh (i. 14), the ultimate revelation
of the Father (i. 18 ; xiv. 9, 10), the God-
sent Saviour of the world (iv. 42). In
John the message of the whole Gospel
culminates.

MIRACLES

IV

MIRACLES

"TT will be apparent from what has been
said in the previous discussions that
much of the labour spent in seeking to
undermine faith in the Bible and in the
Gospel has its source in doubt or denial
of the reality of miracle. This is the
stumbling-block to many minds in accept-
ing the reality of a supernatural revelation.
There is a spirit abroad which every one
must recognise — a temper even more than
a reasoned conviction — which makes it seem
almost a necessity for those who would be
abreast of the times to challenge even so
much as the possibility of happenings in the

61

62 MIRACLES

history of the world that imply a transcend-
ence of the customary order of nature. The
question is scarcely argued. It is thought
enough to say, with Matthew Arnold, per-
emptorily, "Miracles do not happen."

But, if miracles do not happen, it is
plain enough what becomes of the Bible
and its history. The Bible is the history
of a siipernatural revelation, or it is nothing.
It is the story of a supernatural economy,
in which the power of God, transcending
nature for the accomplishment of His great
ends, is continually manifested. The Gospel
itself, centring in Jesus Christ, is a super-
natural interposition of God in human
history for the ends of redemption. Purge
out everything of the nature of miracle
from the Bible, and the bottom is taken
from its whole message. Its credit is
destroyed. It is a crucial question, there-
fore, with which we are here faced.

MIRACLES . 63

1

The causes of this disbelief in miracle
— the grounds on which it supports itself —
are of many kinds, and possess a plausibility
which readily attracts. Science is invoked
to disprove miracle, for is it not a first
principle of science that nature in its opera-
tions is uniform, and that the only causes
that can be admitted in explanation of
phenomena are causes within nature itself ?
Otherwise, it is pleaded, the scientific mind,
relying on nature's uniformity, would be
put to intellectual confusion. The march
of science has been the gradual expulsion
of belief in supernatural agencies in ex-
planation of events. Ghosts, witches, fairies,
superstitions about charms and spells, have
vanished with the advance of enlightenment,
like belief in the influence of the stars on
human destinies. Experience is brought in

64 MIRACLES

to reinforce denial ; for who does not in-
stinctively distrust stories of miracles when
told now, and feel that any explanation in
mistake, or self-deception is preferable to
the admission of a really supernatural cause ?
No one almost would accept the report
of a miracle to-day. Why, then, accept
reports from the obscurity of far-distant
times ? Finally, criticism comes in to riddle
with its appliances faith in the trustworthi-
ness of the records of miracles. Narratives
are dissected ; age and authorship are
doubted ; the stories are dissipated into
legend. Ridicule is poured upon a talking
ass, the " whale " of Jonah, an axe-head
that swam. Is it wonderful that many feel
that to admit miracle in these enUghtened
days is really a mark of credulity ?

What is a miracle ? This will become
clearer in what follows. Scripture, from
its religious point of view, describes miracles

MIRACLES 65

simply as "wonders," "powers" ("mighty
works "), " signs." Science would describe
miracle as an " interruption " or " violation "
of the established order of nature. It may
suffice here to define miracle as any deviation
from or transcendence of the order of nature,
due to the interposition of a supernatural
cause.

II

The possibility of miracle need hardly be
argued at length, for, if a hving, personal,
self-revjahng God is believed in at all.
He can assuredly act in new and trans-
cendent ways above, as weU as within, the
limits of what we caU nature. God is
Himself the Author of nature. Nature
is established by Him. It is He who has
imparted to it its powers, who is the secret
Agent in its workings, who sustains it
moment by moment in its existence, who has

5

66 MIRACLES

prescribed to it its laws. How stupendous
an assertion, then, is it for any one to make,
that He has so bound Himself by the laws
of His own decreeing that He cannot, even
for the highest personal ends, act above
and beyond them ! No dogmatism can be
conceived more arrogant than this !

When we look at man himself, do we
not find a reason for challenging this huge
assumption ? Man is in nature ; but, as
Bushnell cogently argues in his Natwe and
the Supernatural, man is also a power above
nature — a power that acts on nature,
changing, adapting, modifying it, in many
ways, for his intelligent ends? A stone
flung into the air rises, not in virtue of
mere nature, but because a spiritual cause
has interposed, giving a direction to nature's
forces they would not have taken of them-
selves. Man, too, is a self-revealing being
— can speak, plan, exchange his thoughts

MIRACLES . 67

with others, give written expression to his
will. Is God less potent than man in His
own universe ?

Yes, it may be said, but does not this
give us the clue to the real nature of
miracle? May it not be that, just as in
the case of man, God, in His all-ruhng
providence, uses natural means to accom-
plish His spiritual ends ? Grant that God
reveals Himself, enters into personal rela-
tions with man, speaks — is it necessary for
this purpose that the natural order should
be broken through ? Man, after all, does
not break any law of nature. He cannot
create a single atom, or add a new particle
to the sum of nature's energy. He uses
the forces which nature provides for him.
May it not be so also with God ? May
nature not contain in itself aU the forces
required to produce the most stupendous
miraculous effects 1 Is it not simply our

68 MIRACLES

knowledge of the breadth and exhaustless-
ness of nature which is at fault ? So many
at this hour, desiring to save the idea of
miracle, yet in keeping with the uniformity
of nature, hold.

Ill

The answer is that there is no objection
whatever, from the Bible point of view,
to the adoption of this idea of miracle,
provided only it is adequate. There is
nothing in the Biblical conception of miracle
which precludes the using of natural forces
so far as they will go. If, e.g., God em-
ploys a great wind to dry (or help to dry)
the channel of the Red Sea, this does not
make the fact less a true Divine interposition
for the salvation of the Israelites. The
point is, Is the explanation adequate?

On this two remarks may be made.

1. The explanation offered does not re-

MIRACIiES 69

move the fundamental difficulty which those
who reject miracle feel. Miracle is explained
as providence ; but it is a kind of providence
which has all the original difficulty in it.
God still interposes by an act of His will
to order, produce, effect this particular
result, at this particular time, in this par-
ticular way, just as much as on the
hypothesis of an act of power above nature.
The Israelites, e.g., are saved at this par-
ticular juncture by God interposing on their
behalf in accordance with a promise and
command. So in all forms of miracle.
Will the sceptic admit this any more than
direct supranatural volition ? Will he admit
that God exercises this special and par-
ticular providence in the affairs of men ;
that He employs natural agencies to reveal
Himself, and manifest His power, in special,
exceptional ways, to men ? It is certain
he will not.

70 MIRACLES

2. Suppose, however, that the sceptic
does not admit it, may the believer, at least,
not find a certain rehef in this thought of
natural agency in miracle ? This leads to
the second question : Can natural causes
explain all that is given in miracle ? Where
is the evidence that the power displayed
in giving instantaneous sight to the blind,
in healing the leper, in restoring life to the
dead, is power inherent in nature ? If some
miracles can be thus explained, can all ?
Think, e.g., of what is implied in such a
a miracle as the Incarnation. Here, as
Scripture presents it, the Son of God unites
Himself personally with humanity. Is there
nothing in this that transcends nature, or
is the Incarnation only the culmination
of a natural process ? Or take the raising
of the dead. Take, e.g., the case of Lazarus.
This is more even than the revivification
of a dead body — a result which we have

MIRACLES 71

not the least reason to suppose that nature
can effect. It is the calling back of a spirit
— a soul — from the unseen world, and the
reuniting of it with the bodily tabernacle
it had left. Does this not transcend natural
causes ? So in Christ's resurrection — there
is the return from the abode of spirits to
a restored life in the body. In such cases
there is no getting away from a real Divine
interposition — a true creative act. The
creation of the world at first was a stupen-
dous act of omnipotence ; such miracles as
the Gospel records are, for the most part,
equally products of creative agency ; this
time, however, for redemptive, remedial,
ends.

IV

It will be seen from what has been
said that the crucial question in regard to
miracles is not as to the abstract possi-

72 MIRACLES

bility of miracle, or the relation of miracle
to nature, but as to the fact of their
actual happening. It is the historical and
evidential question. Do the difficulties
attaching to the idea of miracle, or to its
proof, justify us in rejecting the miracles
pertaining to the Biblical revelation ?

On this point of the historical reality
of miracle in Scripture, three things may
properly be said :

1. It must be affirmed that miracle, in
the sense described, is worthy and necessary
in a great scheme of redemptive revela-
tion. The \vhole plan of Divine grace in
the Bible is supernatural in origin (God),
in discovery (revelation), in the gracious
means employed (incarnation, atonement,
exaltation of Christ), in the powers through
which it works in the hearts of men and
in the world (Holy Spirit). As a Divine
remedy for human sin, worthy of God

MIRACLES 73

and adequate to the needs of man, it
necessitates the interposition of God in
human history in a supernatural way.
Without such a supernatural entrance of
God into history — a supernatural economy
transcending nature in its powers and
effects — the revelation could not have been
at all. Inherently, therefore, miracle is
credible, and is to be looked for, in con-
nection with such a scheme.

2. Miracle in Scripture is to be regarded,
not as an arbitrary, capricious, meaningless
infraction of the order of nature, but in
its connection -with this Divine scheme,
and in subordination to its ends. There
is a sparingness and reserve, a dignity,
ethical purpose, and reasonableness in the
miracles of Scripture— a congruity with
the teacher and his message — which puts
them in a totally diiFerent rank from
isolated prodigies. They occur generally

74 MIRACLES

at great crises in the history of the king-
dom of God (the exodus, giving of the
law, conflict of EUjah with Baal, ministry
of Christ, etc.), stand in close connection
with the great personalities of revelation
(e.g., Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Christ), and
are wrought for worthy ends. The ex-
ceptions to this statement are few, and
cannot outweigh the cumulative impression
of the whole.

3. In judging of miracle it is a mistake
to begin with the more weakly attested,
or, as some may regard them, paltrier
and more grotesque miracles of Scripture,
instead of with the greatest and best attested
examples of supernatural interposition —
specially with the central miracle, Christ
Himself. It is the height of foolishness
to propose as a test of miracle, to begin
with, such instances as the axe-head of
Elisha, or the fish of Jonah. The supreme

MIRACLES , 75

question — the one an answer to which will
be felt to illuminate the whole area of
revelation — is. What think ye of Christ ?
Christ Himself, in His Di\'ine Person,
claims, sinlessness. mission of salvation,
is the miracle of miracles, and the special
miracles recorded of Him are the natural
and congruous accompaniments of such a
Person and such a work, ^'irgin birth
and miraculous resurrection tit into an
economy of incarnation, atonement, and
exaltation to endless hfe in glory. This
will become more evident as we advance.
It is only to be noted now, that it is
here, with the central facts, not at the
circumference, that the testing of miracle
must begin. Accepting Christ as a miracu-
lous Person, the culmination of a miraculous
historical revelation, the special miracles
will, for the most part, fall into their
natural place in Scripture.

76 MIRACLES

V

It is not pleaded for the miracles of
Scripture that, in respect of evidence, all
miracles stand 07i the same footing, or that
a proof of each miracle, taken by itself,
can be given that will stand scientific
tests. This is not a reason for disbelief,
but it is an admission that the grounds
of faith must be sought for in broader
considerations than the evidence for the
single miracle affords — in the connection,
e.g., with the revelation, the general credi-
bility of the record, the inherent probability
of the miracle, the fitness for the end in
view. On the other hand, it is to be
maintained that there are miracles not a
few for which the historical evidence is
pe7' se broad and strong — amply adequate
to support and justify faith — e.g., the
crossing of the Red Sea at the exodus,

MIRACLES . 77

or, as the chief instance, the resurrection
of Christ. The remarks in a previous
paper on the strength of the apostolic
witness for the narratives in the Gospels
show on how secure a basis of certainty
these rest.

It follows that the miracles of Scripture,
taken in connection with the system of
which they form a part, stand by them-
selves, and are not touched — certainly are
not disproved — by the general objections
to miracle mentioned at the outset. By
the very contrast they exhibit to the base-
less tales of superstition they evince their
right to credit, and redeem the believer
in them from the charge of credulity.

The considerations adduced likewise
furnish help in answering the question
often put : Have miracles evidential value ?
Extremes have to be avoided here on both
sides. If some would rest the whole weight

78 MIRACLES

of revelation on the evidence of miracles,
this is obviously an exaggeration. Miracles
are never mere evidences ; they are elements
in the revelation. Many, in their lack of
independent verification, are not fitted to
act as evidences ; they depend on the
revelation rather than it on them. In
every case the character of the revelation
enters into the proof of the miracle ; the
latter, therefore, cannot alone prove the
revelation. On the other hand, it is an
extreme to deny that miracles have no
share in the evidence for revelation, for
a truly divine work does go far to sustain
the authority of the messenger who works
it. Jesus appealed to His " works " as
evidences that the Father had sent Him.
The evidential power of miracle may be
overstated, but miracle has its rightful
place among the proofs of a supernatural
economy.

THE INCARNATION

THE INCAHNATION

rr^HE centre of Christianity is Christ ;
the conception we form of Christi-
anity, therefore, depends on the estimate
we form of Christ. " What think ye of
Christ?" (Matt. xxii. 42.) Who is He?
Jesus spoke of John the Baptist as a
prophet : " Yea, I say unto you, and much
more than a prophet" (Matt. xi. 9). But
John himself declared of Jesus : " He that
Cometh after me is mightier than I, whose
shoes I am not worthy to bear " (Matt.
iii. 11). And in the Fourth Gospel: "He
that cometh after me is become before
me ; for He was before me " (John i. 15).

81 6

82 THE INCARNATION

I

Who, then, is this Greater One? The
new historical-critical school already referred
to will regard Jesus only as a peasant-
prophet of Galilee. His religious greatness
is not challenged. He is still the grandest,
the most inspired, the most wonderful, of
human teachers. " Never man spake like
this man" (.John viii. 46) on the things
of the soul. But He was only man —
erring, fallible in many respects, and a
guide to us only as His intuitions of
truth repeat themselves, and are verified
in our own experience. The world has
moved away from much in His message.
We must think and judge of things in
terms of that larger view of the world —
scientific and historical — which Christ did
not possess.

Christ's message, on this showing, is

THE INCARNATION 83

distinguished from His Person. He is,
like Socrates, or Plato, or Confucius, the
medium in part of truths which abide the
same though His connection with them
should for ever cease.

Very different from this is the estimate
put on Jesus Christ in all ages by His
Church. The Te Deuvi sings: "Thou
art the everlasting Son of the Father."
The Nicene Creed reads : '• Who, for us
men and our salvation, came down from
heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy
Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made
man." Is this metaphysics ? It is also
the witness of the apostolic writings.
Reserving the clause about the Virgin
birth, it may be taken for granted as a
result of impartial exegesis that Paul,
John, the writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, the author of the Book of Reve-
lation, beheved in the pre-existence, the

84 THE INCARNATION

Divine dignity, the voluntary humiliation,
the real entrance through human birth
into our humanity of the Son of God.
John scales the divinest heights in his
affirmation : "In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. . . . All things were
made by Him. . . . And the Word be-
came flesh, and dwelt among us " (John
i. 1, 3, 14). But Paul's note is not lower:
" Who, being in the form of God, counted
it not a prize to be on an equality with
God, but emptied Himself, taking the form
of a servant, being made in the likeness
of men" (Phil. ii. 6-8). Cf. the numerous
other statements with which the New Testa-
ment Epistles are inlaid, as Col. i. 15-17,
Heb. i. 1-3 ; ii. 14 ; 1 Peter i. 20 ; 1 John
i. 1-3 ; Rev. i. 17, 18. It is not man-made
Creeds only that are assailed when the
incarnation of the Son of God is denied.

THE INCARNATION 85

but the faith and testimony of those
" Prophets and Apostles " on whose wit-
ness the Church from the first was built
(Eph. ii. 20 ; iii. 5).

II

But did the Apostles — did Paul and
John in particular — really represent the
mind of Christ Himself on this great
subject ? Does their picture correspond
with what we find in the simpler narratives
of the first three Gospels (the Synoptics) ?
This is the question most keenly agitated
to-day. It is referred to further after, but
meanwhile the general answer may be
anticipated. The doctrine of the Epistles
is the inevitable development of the history
in the Gospels, provided the totality of the
facts in the Gospels is accepted, and the
picture given there is not trimmed down
and dissipated by critical violence till its

86 THE INCARNATION

most distinctive features disappear. The
apostolic doctrine, indeed, which could only
have come from such a life and claims as
are depicted in the Gospels, is itself the
best guarantee for the truth of the presen-
tation of the latter. For the Jesus of the
Synoptic Gospels is not a non-miraculous
being — one who does not transcend the
limits of humanity. Not in origin, for in
two of the Gospels (Matthew and Luke)
He is supernaturally born. Not in char-
acter, for He, alone of the sons of men,
is without sin. Not in claims, for these
are of the most exalted kind. " He shall
baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with
fire" (Matt. iii. 11; cf. John i. 33).
" All things have been delivered unto Me
of My Father " (Matt. xi. 27 ; in xxviii. 18 :
" All authority hath been given unto Me
in heaven and on earth "). He shall judge
the world (Matt. xxv. 31 ff.). Not in

THE INCARNATION 87

works, for Divine powers continually show
themselves forth in Him in miracles of
mercy. Not in the end of His history,
for, if crucified, He rises again in Divine
might, and is exalted to the right hand of
God. Even the critical attitude to the
Gospels, as said before, is changing in this
connection. Bousset concedes that in the
oldest Gospel (Mark) the Christ we meet
with is the same miraculous Son of God
as is found in the Epistles.

Ill

It is on the faith of this apostolic
testimony about Jesus in the Gospels and
Epistles, in conjunction with the like per-
vading testimony to the divinity and
personal workings of the Holy Spirit, that
the Church proceeded in the early days in
constructing its doctrine of the Trinity.
A Divine Father, a Divine Son, a Divine

88 THE INCARNATION

Spirit — these three are implied in the
whole work of the Christian redemption.
They are named as Principals in the work of
human salvation. Each is adored as Divine.
Yet the unity of the Godhead is held fast.
There are not, and cannot be, three Gods.
The distinction is one within the eternal
Divine nature. It is one name, yet threefold,
into which we are baptized (Matt, xxviii. 19).
Ineffable mystery, doubtless, yet surpassing
discovery of the inmost nature of God !

It is carefully to be observed, however,
that it is not from the doctrine of the
Trinity, first assumed, that we ffescend to
the doctrine of the Incarnation, but con-
versely, from the fact of the Incarnation
(with the work of the Spirit) that we
ascend to the knowledge of God as triune.
It is Christ Himself in His historical mani-
festation with whom we begin. From
Him, in His self-revelation — in His life.

THE INCARNATION 89

death, resurrection ; in His character, words
and works, we learn to know the Son of
the eternal God. It is thus that John,
sublimest of all expounders of the deity
of Christ, tells us He came to know the
Son. " We beheld His glory, glory as of
the only-begotten of the Father (John i.
14). " That which was from the beginning,
that which we have heard, that which we
have seen with our eyes, that which we
beheld, and our hands handled [note the
emphatic reiteration] concerning the Word
of life . . . that which we have seen and
heard declare we unto you also " (1 John
i. 1-3). Above all, the resurrection was
felt to put the seal on Christ's claims to
be the Son of God (Rom. i. 4).

IV

The faith in the incarnation has thus a
sound historical and Scriptural basis.

90 THE INCARNATION

Nevertheless, as is well known, by much
of our modern thought this whole view of
God, and of the incarnation of the pre-
existent Son, is treated as so much
irrational metaphysics or positive myth-
ology ; and, by those who would retain
the name Christian, some other view of
Christ is sought which may be substituted
for it. Hence the recasting in various
forms of the doctrine of the Incarnation.

One view — that which really may be
called metaphysical — rests on an idealistic
view of the unity, or rather the identity,
of God and man. Humanity is divine in
essence, and Christ came to the conscious-
ness of this identity with God. The in-
carnation is really in mankind. God
realises Himself in His universe, and
supremely in man ; among men supremely
and typically in Jesus Christ. This is the
" incarnation " of the so-called " New

THE INCARNATION 91

Theology." Orthodoxy, Mr. Campbell tells
us, "would restrict the description 'God
manifest in the flesh ' to Jesus alone ; the
New Theology would extend it in a lesser
degree to all humanity, and would main-
tain that in the end it will be as true of
every individual soul as ever it was of
Jesus." ^

A modification of this view, which
identifies incarnation with "immanence,"
is connected with the idea of evolution.
God is immanent in all things. In the
evolutionary process higher and ever higher
potencies of the Divine nature come to
light. God incarnates Himself in higher
and higher modes. The natural develop-
ment culminates in man, and humanity
again reaches its noblest manifestation in
Christ. In Christ, God finds an organ for
His fullest self-revelation. The Divine is

' New Theology, p. 83

92 THE INCARNATION

in Him identified with goodness, truth, and
love. This view is thought to bring the
Incarnation into hne with God's whole
revelation in nature and history. It is still,
however, a question of degree only between
Christ and other men. The real incarna-
tion is, first, in the universe, then in
humanity. Christ is but the topmost twig
of the tree.

The contrast between these modern
views and the Gospel incarnation is pro-
found. In all of them man is already God,
or grows to be God. It is but a discovery
of his real essence that is needed. The
incarnation these writers speak of is man
ascending to be God ; not God, in infinite
grace, condescending to become man.
There is no real transcending of the limits
of humanity. To say " God becomes man,"
and explain it to mean " everything human
is Divine," or with the limitation, "all

THE INCARNATION ,93

goodness is Divine," is simply to equate
God and man, and carries us no further
than man himself. The incarnation of the
Gospel means infinitely more.

It is not by proof-texts that this question
is to be settled, but by the whole genius of
the Christian religion — by the facts of the
Gospels, the meaning of Christ's self-
revelation, the connection with redemption,
the worship Christ receives. The test of a
doctrine is that it truly explains the facts.
It has been seen above how impossible it is
to put the facts even of the Synoptic
Gospels into a purely humanitarian frame.
" The Son of man," but not less " the Son
of God " ; Founder of the Kingdom of God,
and at the same time King and Lord over
it ; Baptizer with the Holy Ghost ; the
Holy One who is the Saviour of sinners
and Ransom for their sins ; the Judge of
mankind : who wiU say that such claims

94 THE INCARNATIEN

accord with a rank lower than Divine ?
If John's Gospel be accepted, no doubt of
Christ's superhuman dignity, and of a real
incarnation, can remain. To judge fully
of Christ's claim. His resurrection and
exaltation have further to be taken into
account.

V

What, then, is involved in a true doctrine
of the Incarnation ? Surely, it must be
said, such truths as these :

1. Christ in the root of His Personality
is Divine, In Him dwelt the fulness of the
Godhead bodily (Col. ii. 9). His relation
to the Father is one that transcends time —
is pre-temporal, eternal (John i. 1 ; xvii. 5 ;
Phil. ii. 6; Col. i. 17, etc.). He "came
forth" from God. When even Matthew
quotes with regard to Him the Bethlehem
prophecy from Micah v. 2 (Matt. ii. 5, 6),

THE INCARNATION 95

must there not be in the background
Micah's words: "Whose goings forth are
from of old, from everlasting " ?

2. By voluntary act the Son of God
" emptied " Himself — " became flesh " (John
i. 14) — took upon Him a true human
nature (Phil. ii. 7, 8; Heb. ii. 14, etc.).
John's contention against all Gnostic errors
is that Jesus, the Son of God, truly " came
in the flesh " (1 John, passim). This implies
limitation [kenosis), surrender, as respects
the earthly condition, of Divine glory and
prerogatives. It involves growth and
limitation in knowledge — " ignorance," as
Calvin freely admits, but not therefore
" error," not therefore " sin." Christ par-
took of our human infirmities and tempta-
tions, yet "without sin" (Heb. iv. 15). In
current controversy the distinction between
ignorance (cf. Mark xiii. 32) and error is
one to be carefully held fast.

96 THE INCARNATION

3. In this superhuman Person, in conse-
quence, perfect humanity is united with full
divinity. The Divine is manifested in and
through the human, yet without impairing
the integrity of the latter. Humanity is
recipient of the Godhead, yet the Divine
in union w^ith the human loses none of
its essential attributes, nor, in a cosmical
relation, ceases to exercise them (John iii.
13; Col. i. 16, 17; Heb. i. 3). It is the
personal Son who becomes man.

4. The end of the Incarnation is redemp-
tion. For this cause He was manifested, to
take away sin, to effect reconcihation, to
destroy the works of the devil (Matt. xx.
28 ; John iii. 16 ; 2 Cor. v. 18, 21 ; Gal. iv.
4 ; Heb. ii. 14 ; 1 John iii. 5, etc.).

VI

A word may be said in closing on the
point which has in recent years been made

THE INCARNATION 97

a special object of assault in connection
with the Incarnation — the birth of Jesus
from the Virgin. Our First and Third
Gospels testify that the method chosen by
God for accomplishing this supreme miracle
— for miracle it undoubtedly was — of bring-
ing His First-begotten into the world, was
birth from a pure virgin. " Conceived by
the Holy Ghost," our oldest creed says,
*' born of the \"irgin Mary." 'This is not
the place for a full examination of the
objections raised to the evangelical testi-
mony ; ^ it need only be said generally that
most of these lose their force when taken
in light of the full Gospel and apostolic
witness to Christ's Person. It is hardly
possible to point to an impugner of the
\^irgin-birth who holds in its fulness the
doctrine of the incarnation of the Divine
Word, while hardly a theologian who holds

' See this exhibited in the writer's Virgin Birth of Christ.

7

98 THE INCARNATION

this doctrine rejects the Vir<>in-birth. The
silences of Mnrk and Jolin — whose Gospels
have a different scope — or even of Paul, in
no way cast doubt upon the truthfulness of
narratives which do give, with every mark
of sobriety and responsibility, the story of
the Nativity. If miracle there was in
Christ's earthly origin — and how else ex-
plain His perfect sinlessness, not to say the
union of Godhead with humanity in His
Person ?— surely none can be conceived
more congruous with the end in view than
that which the Evangelists record. Un-
essential the conception by the Holy Ghost
and birth from the Virgin cannot be held
to be, till it is shown that natural generation
ever produced a sinless human being, or
that a new Creative Head could be given to
humanity without something altogether
exceptional — a creative act — in His origin.

THE TEACHING OF JESUS

VI

THE TEACHING OF JESUS

/^NE thing which the late Prof. G. J.
Romanes tells us specially impressed
him in his return from unbelief to faith was
that, in contrast with the words of other
great teachers, even such as Plato, the
words of Jesus do not become obsolete
with lapse of time — do not grow old. He
did not know of any part of Christ's teach-
ing which the subsequent growth of human
knowledge has had to discount.^ This is
what must be true if Jesus is indeed the
supreme and final revelation of the Father.
Such a revelation as His cannot rest on

' Thoughts ore Religion, p. 167.
101

102 THE TEACHING OF JESUS

mere authority. It must shine in its own
light, and discover its Divine character by
its abiding truth and power.

I

To set the teaching of Jesus in its right
connection with His total revelation, it
ought to be remembered, first, that, all-im-
portant as the teaching is, it is not the whole
of the Revelation, or perhaps even the
most fundamental part of it. Behind the
word of Jesus stands ever the Person, and
the whole impression of God which the
Personality makes.' To this everything
about Christ — character, acts, works of
mercy, equally with words — contributes.
The miracles of Jesus, e.g., are as rich in

• " What [Christ] revealed cannot be exhibited in a catena
of quotations from His teaching. To quote His word only is
to leave out the larger half of the revelation which has come
to us through Him. He Himself is the truth, the light, as
well as the life of man, the very Word of God." — Dale's The
Atonement, chap. ii.

THE TEACHING OF JESUS 103

revelation as the parables. This is but to
say that Jesus was more than teacher —
more even than prophet. He did not come
merely as the bearer of a verbal message
from God to men, but was Himself the
embodied revelation — " the Word made
flesh " (John i. 14). He did not simply
utter truths, but was Himself " the Truth "
(John xiv. 6). His revelation was as unique
as His Person and mission were unique.
Hence he could say of Himself, as none
other could : " He that hath seen Me hath
seen the Father" (John xiv. 9 ; cf. i. 18). It
is this conscious personal relation to God
which gives His sayings the depth, meaning,
and authority which they possess.

A second consideration important to be
borne in mind in this connection, though
often forgotten, is that Christ's words are
not to be treated as isolated utterances, or
taken out of their context in previous

104 THE TEACHING OP JESUS

revelation. One thing never to be lost sight
of is Christ's relation to the Old Testament.
These ancient Scriptures were, as already
seen, the Word of God to Jesus. He
constantly assumes their truth and the
reality of the revelation embodied in them.
His consciousness rooted itself in that older
revelation. He moved in the circle of its
conceptions about God, man, the world, sin
— everything. This is a thing to be kept
in mind even where it is not definitely ex-
pressed. There is much which we do not
find, or find only hinted at, in Christ's
teaching, simply for the reason that He
takes it for granted, and assumes that His
hearers knew it, and took it for granted as
well as Himself The plain fact furnishes a
clue to the solution of many things that
occasionally have caused difficulty.

There is, however, another side of Christ's
relation to the Old Testament in His teach-

THE TEACHING OF JESUS ,105

ing which must not less be taken into
account. While Jesus in the fullest way
attached Himself to the Old Testament
revelation, He yet, as Goal and Fuljiller
of that revelation, placed Himself in the
most exalted relation to it (Matt. v. 17 1.
He took up, as Son of Man, a lordly,
discretionary attitude towards it, abrogating
its imperfect provisions, deepening, spiritual-
ising, expanding its precepts, lifting it up to
the level of His own higher dispensation.
Instances are seen in His broadening and
spirituahsing of the precepts of the law
in the Sermon on the JMount (Matt, v.), in
His teachings on the Sabbath (Matt. xii. 8),
on ceremonial purifications and distinctions
of meats (Matt. xv. 10-20; JVIark ^-ii. 19,
Revised Version), on divorce (JMatt. xix.
3-9). It foUows that, in Christ's teaching,
even what is taken from the Old becomes
transformed (cf, 1 John ii. 7, 8). Ideals are

106 THE TEACHING OF JESUS

changed. The commonest words take on
new meanings. There is, to borrow a phrase
from a philosopher of very different spirit
from Christ's (Nietzsche), a " transvaluation
of all values." Old things pass awayin Christ;
everything becomes new (cf. 2 Cor. v. 17).

II

Approaching the actual teaching in the
light of these considerations, we are struck
at once by the loftiness, the originality,
the universality of Christ's conceptions.
Petty, local, national limitations fall alto-
gether away ; we are in presence of the
abiding and eternal. No shallow, trivial
utterance of His can be pointed to in any
of the Gospels. Eschewing merely secular
controversies (Luke xii. 14), He deals
with deep, enduring principles — with those
master truths which furnish light and
guidance to each succeeding age. It is

THE TEACHING OF JESUS 107

this, as has been remarked elsewhere, that
gives His words weight. " Each age as it
comes round finds them fruitful in appli-
cations to itself. Jesus commits Himself
to no one side in party politics ; to no
one denomination or party in the Church ;
to no one form of Church government or
action exclusively ; to no one mode of
social organisation ; to no one solution
of the question of capital and labour, of
rulers and subjects, of rich and poor. The
reason is that the solution of these questions
proper to one age or stage of society might
not be the solution proper to another, and
Christ is not the teacher of one age only
— else His words, like those of all other
teachers, would become obsolete — but the
teacher of all times and all ages. Hence
His words never grow old ; never are left
behind in the world's progress." ^

' The Bible under Trial, p. 251.

108 THE TEACHING OF JESUS

Reference was made above to Christ's
creation of a new scale of values. His
ideals and standards on most things — e.g.,
on blessedness (the Beatitudes), on greatness
(Matt, xviii. 1-4 ; xx. 25-29), on wisdom
(Luke xii. 16-21), on wealth (Matt. vi.
19-21 ; xix. 23-26), on the chief good itself
(Matt. vi. 33)— are an all but complete
inversion of the standards customarily
accepted in the world. Whence this
change ? It arises simply from the new
centre of Christ's teaching — the new stand-
point which He occupies in looking at
everything. His teaching is ruled, as
Browning would put it, by the ideas of
God and the soul. This leads to a trans-
formation in the conception of values —
of the relative values of the material and
the spiritual, of the temporal and the
eternal, of the goods of the body and
the goods of the soul. The world's judg-

THE TEACHING OF JESUS 109

merits on these things are turned upside
down.

As a concrete instance with present-
day bearings, take the question of wealth.
Christ preached no crusade against private
property, or the possession and enjoyment
of the fruits of one's own industry or diU-
gence. This was neither His mission nor
His desire. His real teaching on worldly
goods may be summed up in the following
principles, with their corollaries :

1. The true goods are the imperishable
goods of the soul. These are in every case,
and at all times, to be put first. This
because they are spiritual, incorruptible,
eternal (Matt. vi. 19-24). Nothing is to
be permitted to usurp their place, to wean
the heart away from them, to compare with
them in value (Matt. vi. 33 ; Luke x, 42).

2. The goods of the body — worldly pos-
sessions — are never to be held merely for

no THE TEACHING OP JESUS

self, but under stewardship to God, and
as a means to the wider ends of love
in humanity.

From these principles are deduced at
once Christ's warnings: (1) Against the
hoarding of wealth, i.e. its accumulation
for its own sake, or for selfish ends (Matt,
vi. 19, 21; xix. 23, 24; Luke xii. 16-21).
(2) Against the selfish use of wealth (Luke
xiv. 12-14 ; xvi. 19-25). (3) Deepest of all,
against the hve of wealth, or covetousness
(Luke xii. 15 ; cf. Col. iii. 5 ; 1 Tim. iv. 10 ;
vi. 17).

Christ constructs no theory of society,
but a society modelled on His spirit would
embody these principles. What a trans-
formation it would involve !

Ill

While Christ thus lays down principles
which affect earthly and social conditions,

THE TEACHING OP JESUS 111

it is already evident that the chief parts
of His teaching relate to something higher.
What that something is is summed up in
the comprehensive expression " the Kingdom
of God." His Gospel is the Gospel of the
Kingdom. The righteousness He expounds
is the righteousness of the Kingdom. The
Kingdom is the suvimum bonum for man
(Matt. vi. 33). Before, however, analysing
the content of this rich idea, it is desirable
to glance at some of the great truths which
it presupposes. Here again the grandeur
and enduring character of Christ's teaching
will become manifest.

What are some of the great themes on
which Christ is found most frequently
speaking ? Are they not God, man, sin,
righteousness, salvation, the hereafter ? On
all these topics we see how Christ, on the
one hand, connects His teaching with what
had gone before in the Old Testament, and

112 THE TEACHING OP JESUS

how, on the other, He carries it up to a
higher and more spiritual plane.

1. In Christ's doctrine of God, for in-
stance, there might seem little that is
absolutely new. Christ never thinks, any
more than the Old Testament does, of
proving God's existence. He takes God,
with all His weU-known attributes of
eternity, omnipresence, omnipotence, holi-
ness, etc., for granted, and does not reason
about them. Similarly, Jesus does not argue
about a Divine Providence, but assumes it,
and draws from it the lesson of trust in
the Heavenly Father (Matt. vi. 25 ff.). Yet
what an incalculable advance is involved
in this doctrine of a heavenly Father, in-
terpreted as it is by Christ's own conscious-
ness of Sonship 1 And what an extension
is given to the thoughts of God's love and
forgiving mercy !

2. Or, take the doctrine of man. Here

THE TEACHING OF JESUS 113

again Jesus accepts the Old Testament
view of the creation (Matt. xix. 4-6),
nature, and destination of man — a destina-
tion to a hfe of sonship, forfeited by sin,
restored only by redemption. But how
much more deeply does He penetrate to
the core of man's spiritual being, and assert
for him, as individual, an infinite value in
God's sight I Christ strikes down to that
which is universal in man ; looks at man
in his capacity for spiritual and immortal
hfe ; drops wholly out of view accidental
characteristics of rank, age, sex, nationality,
culture ; seizes only on the essentials in
man's nature. This is why His teaching
endures, why it is adapted to every race
and every stage of culture.

3. What, again, can be more penetrative
or spiritual than Christ's teaching on sinl
Sometimes the assertion is made that Jesus
has nothing to say on the origin of sin —

114 THE TEACHING OF JESUS

knows nothing of a fall. But sin certainly
was not to Jesus a natural, necessary, or
normal state for man. If He appeals to
the Genesis narrative of man's origin on
the subject of marriage (Matt. xix. 4, 5),
it is not likely He would ignore it on the
subject of the origin of sin (cf. John viii. 44).
It is sometimes said, again, that Jesus knows
nothing of hereditary evil — of original sin.
But does He not ? Is there not in His
declarations the constant implication of
imiversal sin ? Is there not, further, a
positive tracing back of sin to a foul foun-
tain in the heart ? " Out of the heart
proceed evil thoughts," etc. (Matt. xv. 19).
In John's Gospel regeneration is a first
article of His teaching (iii. 3-7). Here,
as before, Jesus relates Himself to, and
presupposes. Old Testament teaching in
such passages as Gen. viii. 24 ; Psalm li.
5, 10 ; Isa. i. 5, 6, etc.

THE TEACHING OF JESUS 115

4. Christ teaches the freeness of salvation,
and connects this in well-known passages
with His own Person and redeeming death
(Matt. XX. 28; xxvi. 25-28; John iii. 14-16,
etc.). The subject is dealt with in another
connection.

5. Reverting for a moment to the secular
side of Christ's teaching, it should be ob-
served how, as in other things, Jesus takes
over the Old Testament idea of the world.
Jesus was no pessimist. He accepts the
world as God's world, God's creation (Matt.
vi. 26-30) ; as, therefore, in itself good,
though sin has so woefully defaced it. We
see in the parables how He recognises the
whole wealth of natural human relations ; the
fuU variety of human talents, occupations,
and interests. This is a thing forgotten by
those who urge that Christ has no eye for
the secular side of life. He sees it all,
but has an infinitely higher mission than

116 THE TEACHING OF JESUS

to occupy Himself with its finite aims.

His Gospel is the regulating principle of

the whole.

IV

It may now be seen in part what Jesus

means when He speaks of " the Kingdom

of God." That expression, on His lips, is

vast and many-sided in significance, but we

appear to get to the core of it when we

interpret it to mean simply the supremacy

of God in human hearts and human affairs,

and in every department oj these affairs.

The Kingdom of God begins within, in

the new life imparted to the soul by

Christ, but it is not intended to remain

within. It is to work itself out into every

department of human life, till the whole is

brought under the rule and direction of God.

" Thy Kingdom come," " Thy will be done

on earth, as it is in heaven " (Matt. vi. 10,

11). On the Divine side, the Kingdom is

THE TEACHING OF JESUS 117

the sphere of God's fatherly and gracious
rule, and of the bestowal of all spiritual
blessings : as on man's side it is the sphere of
the realisation of the Divine righteousness.

This is the earthly aspect of the King-
dom, but there is the other — the eschatologi-
cal, or, as some would now name it, the
apocalyptic — on which, largely as it bulks
in Christ's teaching, only a word can here
be said. Jesus does not look for the per-
fection of His Kingdom on earth, but sees
its consummation in eternity, connecting
this with His own Parousia, with resurrec-
tion, and with judgment. It is becoming
customary to say that these are elements
derived from popular Jewish apocalyptic
beliefs — elements which enlightened Christi-
anity must drop oflF. It might be shown,
on the other hand, that they are elements
which spring from the depths of Christ's
own consciousness, and which cannot be

118 THE TEACHING OF JESUS

ignored in any just view of His teaching.
The Jewish apocalypses could not have
produced them.* Jesus knew that He
would die and would rise again. He knew
Himself to be King and Lord of the King-
dom He had founded. He confidently
looked forward to a time of triumph and
visible manifestation of the Kingdom with
which He would be personally identified.
Of day and hour He would not speak
(Matt. xxiv. 36 ; Mark xiii. 32), though He
foretold that there would be nearer preludes
of that final event (Matt. xvi. 28 ; xxiv. 34).
However delayed by the slow course of
providence, or by the unfaithfulness of the
Church itself, that day will surely, in the
Father's good pleasure, come. It is for
those who trust their Lord's word to watch
and pray for it (Matt. xxiv. 45-51)."

' Cf. G. A. Smith's Jerusalem II., pp. 640-41.
' For fuller discussion of this subject in its diiferent aspects,
see the writer's Sidelights on Christian Doctrine, chap. x.

THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION

VII

THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION

rriHE earthly history of Jesus ends in the
sorrow, black as night, of the Cross.
To this succeeds the dawn, bright with
hope, of the Easter Resurrection. Cross and
Resurrection go together, in the apostohc
Gospel, as inseparable parts of human salva-
tion. " Who was delivered up for our tres-
passes, and was raised for our justification "
(Rom. iv. 25). Yet both, on different
grounds, are centres of challenge by the
modern spirit.

I

There is no disputing, naturally, the
fact of the crucifixion. As bare, historical

121

122 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION

occurrence, that stands unchallengeable by
the severest scepticism. To Jew and Greek,
from the first, Jesus was the object of
reviling and scorn as " the Crucified." It
is not the fact of the crucifixion, but its
significance — the meaning with which it is
clothed in the apostolic writings — which is
put in question. The sympathy and in-
dignation with which every right-thinking
mind must contemplate the Cross as the
instrument of a righteous man's martyrdom,
is far removed from the exultation in the
Cross as the means of a world's redemption
which animated the mind of a Paul (Gal. vi.
14). The Cross, in the modern rendering
of it, was the sacrifice of a holy life through
the sin of men : it was not a sacrifice taking
away the sin of the world in the eyes of
God. It was a natural climax to the
collision of good and evil in the life of
Jesus ; it was not, as faith came later

THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 123

to regard it, a supreme act of atonement
for human transgression.

In the case of the resurrection, on the
other hand, it is not simply the significance,
but the fact itself, which is denied. The
event we call the resurrection, it is said,
never happened. The disciples doubtless
believed it did ; they even founded the
Christian Church on the preaching of this
belief. But they were mistaken. It did
not happen, for the reason that, as is
strenuously affirmed, it could not happen.
" There is no resurrection of the dead," so
the Corinthian sceptics long ago protested
(1 Cor. XV. 12). It would be a "miracle"
if Christ rose from the dead, and this, as
Hume said, is something that " has never
been observed in any age or country." It
must therefore be dismissed by intellectually
minded people as incredible. The disciples
only thought they had seen the Risen Christ.

124 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION

They had "visions," which later tradition
magnified into the stories of the resurrection
in the Gospels. But the body of Jesus
never left the tomb. It lay there, or
wherever else it had been put, and " saw
corruption." The spirit of Jesus may have
survived, may now live with God. That
depends on whether we have good reasons
for believing in immortality. But this has
nothing to do with the resurrection of the
body.

The general question of miracles has
already been dealt with ; it is not proposed
to go back upon it now. But it is de-
sirable that the two questions here raised
should be dispassionately considered. In
what light is the Cross of Jesus regarded
in the Gospels ? and what are the grounds
of belief in the historical fact of the
resurrection ?

THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 125

II

On the first point — the meaning of the
Cross — it is often objected that the Epistles
of the New Testament concentrate attention
on the Cross and resurrection of Jesus, and
ignore His life and teaching, which are the
main things in the Gospels. This, it will
be seen by and by, is only partially true ;
meanwhile it is well to draw attention to
the fact that the Gospels also lay a supreme
emphasis on the death and resurrection.^ It
is seldom noticed how large a space, pro-
portionately, is given in the narratives to
the period after the open announcement
of Christ's death. One authority (Burkitt)
tells us that the Synoptic Gospels, alto-
gether, do not contain the record of the
events of more than forty separate days.

' Dr. Dale rightly lays stress on this in chap. ii. of his
work on The Atonement.

126 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION

But of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark
fully one-third is devoted to the events
of the Passion Week and their sequel in
the resurrection ; Luke has several chapters ;
John gives half his Gospel to the same
period. The story of the Last Supper, of
Gethsemane, of the betrayal, the trial, the
crucifixion, the burial, is told in minute,
affecting detail. Even this is not the
whole. The open announcement of the
approaching death is not, indeed, made till
after Peter's great confession at Caesarea
Philippi (Matt, xvi. 21 ; xvii, 22-23 ; xx.
17-19, etc.). But it is obvious that in the
minds of the Evangelists the death is the
pivot of their whole narrative — the tragic
denouement to which everything is moving
from the first. And it is connected with
human salvation. Jesus is to " save His
people from their sins " (Matt. i. 21) ; is
the promised "Saviour" (Luke ii. 11, 30 —

THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION , 127

with suffering, vv. 34, 35) ; " the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the
world" (John i. 29). After the resurrec-
tion, remission of sins was to be preached
in His name (Luke xxiv. 46, 47). It is
not too much to say that the shadow of
the Cross hes over the Gospels from the
first page to the last.

There is no good reason to doubt that
the fact of suffering and death as the way
to His final victory was before the mind
of Jesus from His first entrance on His
ministry. In the baptism he was con-
secrated to His Messianic work. In the
temptation He definitely renounced worldly
ideals of the Messiahship, and chose a
road which could have only one ending.
Jesus, as His teaching shows, was under
no illusions as to what lay before Him.
The fate which overtook His faithful
follower, the Baptist, He Himself — the

128 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION

Greater One — could not hope to escape.
He knew the lot of prophets and messengers
of God in the past. He warns His dis-
ciples of coming inevitable persecutions,
and takes it for granted that they were
in this but suffering like their Master
(Matt. X. 16-25). The explicit intimation
of His death came later, but from the
beginning there were anticipations of the
end. The bridegroom would be taken
from them (Matt. ix. 15; cf. xx. 22, 23).
To Nicodemus, in John's Gospel, Jesus
unbosoms Himself yet more freely (John iii.
14, 15).

HI

There was no dubiety in the mind of
Jesus, then, as to the path of suffering
He had to tread, or as to the Cross that
stood at the end of it. Many things show
how deeply He thought and felt about

THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION ^129

the cup of sorrow He had to drink, cf.
Mark x. 32 ; Luke ix. 31, 51 ; John xii. 27,
etc.). The question next arises, In what
hght did this tragic ending of His life
appear to Him ? Was it simply a cata-
strophe, a bitter ordeal that had to be
endured as the cost of His testimony, a
temporary triumph of sin over righteous-
ness ? Or was it connected in some deeper,
more intimate, diviner way with the ends
of His mission ? Do the Gospels help us
to give an intelligible answer to this
question ?

The Cross in Christ's consciousness evi-
dently could not be divorced from His
knowledge of Himself as " the Christ, the
Son of the living God " (Matt. xvi. 16, 17).
"Son of Man" and "Son of God," He
knew Himself as the Messiah, the Holy
One who was to come, the Saviour. The

attempt to rule out these elements from

9

130 THE CROSS AND THE RESUREECTION

the consciousness of Jesus must always
fail. He knew Himself as the Sinless One,
who stood in unbroken rapport of mind
and will with the Father (Matt. xi. 27),
and always did the things that pleased
Him (John viii. 29). Death was naturally
to such an One a thing of horror, some-
thing to which, as Prince of Life and Life-
giver, He was under no need of submitting,
a contradiction of His whole nature and
destiny. Yet it lay before Him as a certain
result of His witness to the Father ; as
something to be voluntarily accepted in
obedience to the Father. How did He
regard it in this relation?

It is clear, to begin with, that, conscious
as he was of Sonship, Jesus accepted His
sufferings and death as His Fathers ordain-
ment and a divine necessity of His Messianic
vocation. The words in Luke : " Behov^ed
it not the Christ to suffer these things, and

THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 131

to enter into His glory ? " (xxiv. 26), ex-
press the feeling throughout the Gospels
on this point. The Christ "must" suiFer
(Matt. xvi. 21 ; Luke xxiv. 7, 44). The
" must " lay partly in fulfilment of prophecy;
but this only as an indication of the will
of God, and of the necessity of the case.
It was the Father's will that was to be
done (Matt. xxvi. 39, etc.). It lay in the
path of the Lord's work as Messiah, as
Saviour, that He should die.

It is clear also that, while accepting His
death as an appointment of the Father,
Christ imported into it a deeper meaning
than simply a death encountered in the
service of righteousness. It was that, but
it was far more. The leading clue to
His consciousness here is no doubt that
wonderful picture of the Suffering Servant
in Isaiah liii. That description must have
stood out beyond all others in His constant

132 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION

study of the prophecies. It was with the
prophecy of the Servant of the Lord He
began His ministry in Nazareth (Luke iv.
17-21). Matthew saw the spirit of it
fulfilled in His taking the infirmities and
diseases of men upon Himself in a perfect
sympathy in His healing ministry (viii. 17).
He declared it to be fulfilled in Himself
on the night of the betrayal (Luke xxii. 37).
In it He found the idea of a suffering
which was vicarious and expiatory, and
brought salvation to transgressors (cf.
Isa. liii. 5, 6, 10, 11, 12). His death, there-
fore, was more than simple endurance at
the hands of wicked men. It had a saving
efficacy. This is already hinted at to
Nicodemus (John iii. 14-16). It is involved
in various connections in other sayings in
John (vi. 51 ; x. 15-18 ; xii. 24, 32, 33).
It is the key to such utterances as that
in Matthew and Mark: "Even as the

THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION ^33

Son of Man came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister, and to give His
life a ransom for many " (Matt. xx. 28 ;
Mark ix. 45 — He " came " for this end) ;
and at the Last Supper, where He speaks
of His body as given and His blood as
shed for men, for the making of a " new
covenant" of salvation (Matt. xxvi. 26-28,
etc.).

Such language goes far beyond mere
martyrdom. How is it to be construed 1
We may gain a hint if we think (1) of
how Jesus identified Himself with men —
" Son of Man " ; (2) of His consciousness
of His calling to " save " men ; and (3) of
His view of suffering and death as some-
thing alien to the true destiny of man —
absolutely foreign to Himself— and an ex-
pression of God's judgment on the sin
of the world. To this experience, which
belongs to a world of sin, Christ, sinless

134 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION

Himself, submitted for the sake of others,
and in His love for men, and oneness of
heart and will with God, made true atone-
ment, such as He alone could make, for
the sin of a humanity that lay under doom,
and could not of itself remove the awful
burden. More will be said on this point
in speaking on the apostolic Gospel. Only
one thing here : the longing for atonement
lies deep in the heart of mankind. If
Christ was " Son of Man," He could not
but desire to make atonement ; the Gospel
of the Cross is the declaration that He
did it.

IV

It has already been noticed that Cross
and Resurrection go together in the Epistles.
The same is found when we consider their
relation in the Gospels. In the same breath
in which He foretold His approaching

THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 135

sufferings and death, Jesus predicted His
rising again from the dead (Matt. xvi. 21 ;
xvii. 23; xx. 19, etc.). It could not be
otherwise. If Jesus was what He claimed
to be, death could not hold Him. If He
was truly Redeemer, He must rise again.
If His work of reconciliation was complete,
this must be shown by manifest victory
over death. If He died by voluntary act —
His work accomplished — by voluntary act
His life must be resumed (John x. 17, 18).
There can be no question, therefore, as
to the importance of the place of the
resurrection in the Christian Gospel. The
disproof of it, if such a thing w^ere con-
ceivable, would be the overthrow of Chris-
tianity itself (cf. 1 Cor. xv. 14, 17). Despite
apostolic belief, however, the resurrection is
challenged, and the evidence for it declared
to be of no account. Searching criticism
is appHed to the Gospel testimonies, and

136 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION

these are held to be so late in origin, so
legendary in character, so varying in detail,
that no reliance can be placed upon them.
A counter-explanation must be sought — in
self-deception, in mental hallucination, in
Oriental myths, perhaps in part in fraud
(Joseph of Arimathaea, or some other, hid
the body !).

The answer to all this, briefly, is — that
the witness to the resurrection is that
of the whole apostolic body and the whole
apostolic Church, and, in the circumstances,
these could not be mistaken in the grounds
of their belief. The Church began, within
a few weeks of the crucifixion, at Jeru-
salem, and there was not a doubt in a
single mind that the Lord had risen. They
knew well all the facts of the crucifixion
and the events of the Easter morning, and
bore steady and unshaken public testimony
to what they had seen and known. A list

THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 137

of the chief appearances of Jesus to the
Apostles and to five hundred brethren at
once, the genuineness of which is beyond
all dispute, is given by Paul in 1 Cor. xv.
3-8 ; and this is supplemented by the more
detailed narration in the Gospels of the
early morning visit of the women to the
tomb, their finding of the grave empty,
and the message they received ; then of
the subsequent appearances to the disciples.
Not once or twice, but repeatedly, under
conditions that made hallucination impos-
sible, Jesus is recorded to have manifested
Himself bodily to His disciples, conversed
with them, eaten and drunk with them,
given them His commands. This is what
is testified, and the closest scrutiny of the
narratives fails to break down their witness
in its essential points.'

• For detailed examination of the evidence, see the author's
work. The Renurrection of Jesus.

138 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION

Is there no confirmation! The Apostles
beheved that they received such at Pente-
cost (Acts ii.), and the living Church since
has had hourly experience of the presence,
power, and working of a Holy Spirit which
attests tlie divine source from which it
comes. Christ in men, the hope of glory
(Col. i. 27), is a continuous witness to the
truth of Christ Risen and Exalted.

JESUS AND PAUL

VIII

JESUS AND PAUL

"TT is one of the fashions of recent criti-
cism, though its beginnings go farther
back, to set Paul against Jesus, and repre-
sent the Apostle as, even more than the
Master, the real author of historical Chris-
tianity. Baur, in the last century, held
that it was Paul who set free the principle
of universality in the Gospel of Jesus ; but
Baur granted that the principle was there
from the first in the Person of Jesus,
though cramped and narrowed by the in-
fluence of the Jewish national idea of the
JNIessiah. This, which, in Baur's view, was

Paul's merit, is now held to be his blame,

ui

142 JESUS AND PAUL

and he is roundly charged with having
changed Christ's Gospel of simple trust
in a gracious Heavenly Father, and of a
coming Heavenly Kingdom, into something
totally different.

In support of this charge, the contrasts
between the simpler teaching of the Gospels
(John being left out) and the elaborated
theology of Paul, starting from, and laying
all but exclusive stress on, the death and
resurrection of Jesus, are dwelt upon and
strongly exaggerated. Paul, it is held,
knew, at least, cared, little for the earthly
life and teaching of Jesus ; his interest was
absorbed in the Heavenly Being who had
appeared to him on the road to Damascus,
and in the supposed meaning of His death
and resurrection for the salvation of the
world. In interpreting these facts Paul

JESUS AND PAUL 143

drew on notions borrowed from his Rab-
binical training and Pharisaic experience, and
gave the events a quite new significance.
A theology of the Person of Christ (pre-
existence, incarnation), and of a work of
redemption, through endurance of death
as curse of the law, took the place of
the older, simpler conceptions. Professor
Schmiedel even thinks that it was Paul
who introduced the idea of Christ's sin-
lessness !

So the Gospel of the simple, loving Man
of Galilee was changed and disfigured in
nearly all its features by the influence of
his so-called Apostle. The opponents were
right ; it was not they, but Paul, who
preached " another Gospel." In room of the
Kingdom of God now stood the Church —
the Kingdom being relegated to the future.
In room of the keeping of the law — the
doing the will of the Heavenly Father —

144 JESUS AND PAUL

now stood the abrogation of the law for
believers. In room of the inspiring example
of Jesus as He actually lived, and moved,
and taught among men, now stood a
machinery of redemption through the Cross,
with only the remotest allusions to Christ's
earthly life. Yet it is on the teaching of
Paul, we are reminded, almost exclusively,
that the theology of subsequent Chris-
tianity — especially Protestant theology— is
based. To get at the Christianity of Jesus,
Paul must be renounced.

II

It will be very evident that, if the fore-
going description is correct, Paul was an
even greater religious force than Jesus, for
Paul at least taught a universal Gospel of
grace and love for men, while Jesus did not.
Yet surely it is not difficult to see that,
while necessarily there must be a contrast

JESUS AND PAUL 145

between Master and Apostle — between

Gospel and Epistle — the features of the

contrast are violently exaggerated. Gospel

and Epistle are not thus rudely to be torn

asunder. The Gospels, with their matchless

pictures of the historical Jesus, came from

the bosom of the apostolic community —

from circles charged with those very Pauline

ideas which are said to be opposed to their

representations. The Epistles, didactic and

hortatory in character, dealing largely with

practical questions which had arisen in the

Churches, are what we might expect them

to be, remembering that letters are not

biographies, and that, in the interval, Christ

had died, had risen again, had been exalted

to glory ; that the Spirit had been given,

and a Christian Church created. The

Christians in these communities, familiar

with the story of Christ's life, and instructed

in the meaning of His death and resurrec-

10

146 JESUS AND PAUL

tion by the Apostles, would have been the
most astonished people in the world to learn
that there was any antagonism between the
two things. Still more would Paul have
been amazed to be told that his Gospel was
in contradiction with the lessons of Christ's
life. Nobody then suspected such a thing ;
centuries of Christendom failed to find it
out ; only now has the cleverness of the
critics discovered it ! How many letters
of Christians one to another, it might be
asked, even at the present hour — how many
homilies, sermons, pastorals to Churches —
furnish details of Christ's doings and sayings,
and do not rather assume a knowledge of
these in their readers and hearers ?

It is foolish to talk, as some do, of Paul
as ignorant of the facts of Christ's earthly
history, because he does not recite them,
or make them the special basis of his gospel
of reconciliation. Alike from his personal

JESUS AND PAUB 147

acquaintance with the heads of the Jerusalem
Church — he stayed with Peter for fourteen
days (Gal. i. 18) — from companions like
John, Mark, and Luke (the later evange-
hsts), and from the catechetical instruction
imparted to converts in every Church he
visited (cf Luke i. 1-4), he had the amplest
opportunities of knowing all that was to
be known about the history of Jesus ; and
it is impossible to doubt that he availed
himself to the full of such opportunities.
If the Epistles do not give incidents and
sayings, they at least, like Paul himself,
are saturated with Christ's spirit in a
manner which implies that the facts of
Christ's history were known, and that their
spirit had been imbibed ; while the constant
exhortations to like-mindedness to Christ,
and to obedience to His precepts — to
" imitation " of Christ — presume a similar
knowledge in his converts (Rom. xiii. 14 ;

148 JESUS AND PAUL

xiv. 14, 18 ; XV. 3 ; 1 Cor. xi. 1 ; vii. 10, 12 ;
Gal. vi. 2 ; Col. iii. 16 ; 1 Thess. i. 6, etc.).
The other Epistles, as little as Paul's, give
details of Christ's life.

Ill

It is not so strange as it at first appears
that Paul should throw the supreme emphasis
on the facts of Christ's death and resurrec-
tion, to the seeming (but only seeming)
neglect of the hfe that preceded ; for in
truth these w^ere the facts w^hich, in mag-
nitude and importance, once they had
happened, overshadowed all others in their
relation to salvation. Everything in this
dispute depends on what it is supposed that
Christ came into the world to do. On this,
as was seen before, the Gospels have their
own instructive word to offer. Jesus was
the Christ — the bringer-in of the Messianic
salvation. His life was a wondrous revela-

JESUS AND PAUL U9

tion of the character and grace of God ;
but it was in His death and resurrection
that His work was brought to its all-
comprehending issue. A large part of the
Gospels is devoted to preparing for and
describing the tragedy of the death. The
momentum of the narrative — the absorbing
pressure of Christ's own mind — are towards
Calvary. " I have a baptism to be baptized
with," we hear Him saying, " and how am
I straitened till it be accomplished ? " (Luke
xii. 50 ; cf. Mark x. 32). But with the
death, as seen also, was always joined the
resurrection. In the Cross sin seemed to
triumph. In the resurrection was demon-
strated the perfect triumph of the Redeemer
over both sin and death ; the opening of
the gates of an endless life to His people !
Why, then, the submission to suffering and
death at all ? Because, said Jesus, it had
to be so, if His mission as Saviour was to

150 JESUS AND PAUE

be accomplished. The Son of Man must
die ; He came " to give His life a ransom
for many" (Matt. x. 28).

Is it not intelligible how, after this great
saving work had been completed, and Christ
had ascended to His glory in the heavens,
the centre of gravity, in the preaching oi
the Apostles should be shifted from the
life to the death and rising again ? Could
it, in the nature of things, have been other-
wise ? If it is in His death that Christ
has supremely reconciled us to God, must
not that fact now take the leading place
in all that is declared regarding Him ?
The life is not ignored — far from it. All
that was in Christ's life is gathered up in
concentrated form in the Cross ; without
the life, the Cross could not have been.
But the Cross is the decisive turning-point
for human salvation. Man's first need is
to be set right with God ; this is done at

JESUS AND PAUL 151

the Cross. Then comes the obligation to
hoHness and service, and here the image
of Christ's earthly life reasserts its rights
as exhibiting the model to which we are
to be conformed.

As Avas to be expected, therefore, it is
not in Paul only, but in all the leading
apostolic writings — in the Epistles of Peter,
of John, to the Hebrews, the Book of
Revelation — that this insistence on the
redeeming death, and on the resurrection,
of Christ is to be observed. The early
discourses in Acts concentrate on these
facts, and on the remission of sins in the
name of the crucified and now exalted
Jesus (Acts ii. 22-38 ; iii. 13-26 ; iv. 8-12).
Paul himself declares that his preaching
was the common doctrine of the Churches.
" I delivered unto you first of all that
which also I received: that Christ died
for our sins according to the Scriptures ;

152 JESUS AND PAUL

and that He was buried ; and that He hath
been raised on the third day, according to
the Scriptures" (1 Cor. xv. 3, 4). Accord-
ingly, while Peter holds Christ up as an
example (1 Pet. ii. 21, still with special
reference to suffering), it is, throughout.
His death and resurrection to which pro-
minence is given. The Epistle to the
Hebrews is devoted to Christ's priesthood
and sacrifice. The songs of the redeemed
in the Apocalypse celebrate a blood-bought
salvation (Rev. v. 9 ; vii. 9-12). Paul is
therefore at one with the general apostohc
Gospel — a Gospel which has its ground in
the facts, not in speculations of the
Apostles' own minds.

IV

It was thus inevitable that, after the
death and resurrection of Jesus, a change
should take place in the presentation of

JESUS AND PAUL 153

the truth of the Gospel ; but there are
otlier reasons which make the contrasts
that appear between the Gospels and
Epistles more clearly intelligible. The
fallacy which underlies most of the reason-
ing on this subject lies in ignoring the
necessary contrast in the positions of the
Apostle and His Lord. So long as Jesus
is looked on simply as one great teacher,
and Paul as another, on the same or like
planes of influence, the contrasts naturally
present a puzzle. But this is not the true
relation. Paul was sinner ; Jesus was
Saviour. Paul was disciple ; Jesus was
Lord. Paul was weak, struggling man ;
Jesus was Son of God. Paul spoke as the
ambassador of another ; Jesus spoke with
an authority of His own. Jesus achieved
redemption ; Paul by faith appropriated
it. These things involved the widest con-
trasts in attitude and speech. It is an

154 JESUS AND PAUL

obliteration of all the actualities of the
situation to put Paul and Jesus in the
same line.

Take only the one vital contrast — Christ's
sinlessness, and Paul's experience of sin
under the law. Jesus " knew no sin "
(2 Cor. V. 21). His life was one of un-
broken unity of will and disposition with
the Father. He knew Himself to be separ-
ate from sinners, and presented Himself as
the Saviour of sinners. With Paul, on
the other hand, sin was an ever-present ex-
perience (Rom. vii. 14-23). The law, in
revealing the spirituality of God's require-
ment, but intensified the power of sin
within him (vv. 12, 13). His striving
after righteousness was a failure. Not till
he found deliverance through the law of
the Spirit of life in Christ was sin overcome
(Rom. vii. 24, 25 ; viii. 1, 2). How could
a writer, speaking from such experience, do

JESUS AND PAUL 155

other than magnify the grace which had
deUvered him from so wretched a condition
— first, from the law's condemnation ; next,
from the sin's power ! Paul's experience is
the key to his theology. It is the theology
of the sinner who is saved. Its standpoint
is necessarily in contrast with that of the
I^ord who delivers.

V
The charge that Paul's theology is derived
from Rabbinic notions alien to the teaching
of Jesus may be dismissed with slight
notice. A careful study of the facts refutes
it. Christ's doctrine of the law is not in
discord with Paul's. The ceremonial law
falls away in both, while the moral law has
its obligation expanded and strengthened.
Yet it is not through law, but through faith,
accepting God's forgiving grace, that any
sinner can be saved. Paul repels the charge
that his Gospel relaxes the obligations of

156 JESUS AND PAUL

the moral law (Rom. iii. 8). " Do we then
make the law of none effect through faith ?
God forbid ; nay, we establish the law "
(Rom. iii. 31). The very aim of redemp-
tion is that " the ordinance of the law
might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after
the flesh, but after the Spirit "(Rom. viii. 4).
The dignity, again, which Paul ascribes to
Jesus is not contrary to Christ's own teach-
ing ; it is, as was formerly shown, the
necessary interpretation of Christ's own
claims ; is taken for granted, besides, as the
doctrine of the whole apostolic Church. Is
it, then, the nomenclature of " justification "
by faith that is strange ? But new needs
call forth new terms ; and Paul is here
expounding a doctrine not in accordance
with, but in antithesis to, Pharisaic claims
to a righteousness through the law.^ That

' A. Ritschl has justly said : " It would be a mistaken
purism were any one to prefer the less developed statements

JESUS AND PAUL 157

pretension Paul strikes dead with effective
reasoning, and shows that only through
Christ's propitiatory work, and renewal by
the Spirit, can righteousness be attained.
Forgiveness is not a mere amnesty. It is a
boon coming to men on a righteous basis —
a " righteousness of God," grounded on
what Christ has done for mankind in His
death.

It is, then, possibly, the Cross itself, as
Paul gloried in it, which is the offence ; the
doctrine of " redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of our trespasses, according
to the riches of His grace " (Eph. i. 7).

of Jesus to the forms of apostolic thought. Nay, more, we
are justified in not paring down the most developed forms of
the Pauline system, hut preserving them in theological usage,
for they serve to express most sharply the opposition between
Christianity and Judaism. ... By means of the Pauline
formulas the uniqueness of Christianity is marked off from
the Pharisaic falsification of the religion of the Old Testa-
ment, and thereby the Christian Church most surely pro-
tected against a recrudescence of the latter error." — Justif
and Rscon. iii., p. 3. (E. T.)

158 JESUS AND PAUL

This declaration, however, as was also
shown, has its connection with Christ's own
words, and will everlastingly stand as part
of the original apostolic (not simply Pauline)
Gospel. Paul's doctrine is simply an eluci-
dation of this truth in its connection with
the economy of law, with universal sin, and
with the demands of righteousness springing
from the very nature of God. Sin and
guilt are realities, and cannot be simply con-
doned. Holiness must be magnified even
in sin's forgiveness. The unrighteousness
of the world must be met by a righteous-
ness in the new Head of the race — by
honour even to the punitive aspect of the
Divine righteousness in submitting to the
uttermost effect of sin in humanity, in a
death at the hands of sinners — a tribute to
the moral order in the world which only the
sinless Son of God could render (cf Rom.
iii. 20-31 ; v. 8-21). On this basis, that

JESUS AND PAUE 159

" God was in Christ reconciling the world
unto Himself," the message goes forth :
" Be ye reconciled to God " (2 Cor. v. 19-21).
Dead to sin with Christ ; ahve to God
through the Spirit ; "in hope of eternal
life, which God, who cannot lie, promised
before times eternal " (Titus i. 2) — this
is Paul's Gospel for the world.

THE EARLY CHURCH

11

IX

THE EARLY CHURCH

"TT is not as an institution, but as a
witness to the Christian faith, that
the Early Church is here to be considered.
It is manifestly impossible, however, alto-
gether to dissociate the one aspect from the
other. The question arises, first, as to
what the Church is, and what function
its Lord intended it to fulfil.

Did Jesus mean to found a Church, or
visible society of believers, in the world ;
and, if He did, what was His purpose in

163

164 THE EARLY CHURCH

founding it ? By some it is contended that
Jesus did not contemplate any such separate
society of His disciples. He expected an
immediate end of the world, and aimed
only at individual conversions. This, how^-
ever, is at variance with the whole tenor
of the Gospels. Apart from direct mention
of a " Church " {ecclesia, Matt. xvi. 18 ; xviii.
17 — passages which the objectors would ex-
punge), it seems plain that Jesus did regard
it as part of His vocation to found a
"Kingdom" in this world (Matt. xiii.
parables of Sower, Tares, etc. ; John
xviii. 36, 37), anticipated its growth and
enlargement (Mark iv. 26-32), and the
gathering of men of all nations into it
(Matt. viii. 11 ; xxi. 43 ; John xii. 32),
predicted for it troubles and persecutions,
with mingling of good and evil, and
apostacies (Matt. x. 13 ; xxiv. 4-14, etc.)
— the dispensation to be ended by His

THE EARLY CHURCH 165

" Parousia," or return in glory (Matt. xxiv.
25, etc.).

In consonance with this conception, Jesus
is found choosing and training twelve
Apostles (Matt. x. 13 ; xi. 51-2, etc.), giving
them directions and rules for discipline
(Matt, xviii. 15-20), appointing sacraments
(Matt. xxvi. 26-29, etc., the Lord's Supper ;
xxviii. 19, Baptism : cf. 1 Cor. xi. 23 fF.),
promising the Spirit to His waiting disciples
(Luke xxiv. 49 ; John xv. 7-15 ; cf Acts
ii.), giving commission to evangehse the
world (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20 ; cf. xxiv. 14 ;
Mark xvi. 15), promising to be with His
people to the end (Matt, xviii. 20 ; xxviii.
20). He is a householder who will leave
stewards in charge in His absence (Matt.
xxiv. 42-51, etc.). How, indeed, could the
work of Christ be saved from losing itself
in the world except by some form of society
in which His adherents were bound together

166 THE EARLY CHURCH

for fellowship, testimony, and labour for
His cause ? Christ's disciples are exhorted
to fidelity, to unity, to love, to mutual
helpfulness. How was this possible if there
was not some mode of public recognition ?

The function which the Church is to
discharge in the world is already imphed in
what has been said of Christ's object in
creating it. " Church " and " Kingdom "
are not precisely the same, for the " King-
dom," as seen before, is a name for God's
rule in all departments of human life (family,
society, business, state, etc.). But the
Church is still the one Society which visibly
represents God's Kingdom in the world,
and it exists for the ends of this Kingdom.
It is the association of the members of the
Kingdom in their directly religious capacity
for the purposes of fellowship, of worship,
of testimony, of edification, of the further-
ance of the Gospel at home and the

THE EARLY CHURCH 167

evangelisation of the world abroad. It is
by its fitness to accomplish these ends — by
the degree in which it manifests the spirit
of Christ, and exhibits Christ and His truth
faithfully to men, by its zeal and self-
sacrifice in promoting His cause — not by
barren orthodoxy of creed, or pompous
splendour of ritual in service — that it will
be judged at the last (Matt. vii. 21-23).

II

The Church, founded by Christ, and
launched into the world, after consecration
by the Spirit, through the preaching of the
life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, had a
wonderful history of suffering and success,
which it is not our business here to trace.
From the Jews, who as a people shut their
hearts against its message, it spread, at first
mainly through Paul's labours, among the
Gentiles, and by the close of the Apostolic

168 THE EARLY CHURCH

Age had established itself in most of the
great centres of Greek and Roman civilisa-
tion. Persecutions, terrible in cruelty, had
overtaken it (cf. Rev. ii. 10-13 ; vii. 13, 14) ;
but this baptism of blood had only purified
its ranks and aided its increase. It is a
mistake to think of the early Christian con-
verts as drawn only from the lower strata
of society. The Catacombs at Rome, with
other notices, show that already members
of the noblest families, and not a few
possessed of wealth, were included in its
numbers. Pomponia Grscina, Flavins
Clemens, the consul, and his wife Domitilla,
Manius Acilius Glabrio, may be cited as
instances.^ A crypt of the Flavians shows,
as Harnack says, that " an entire branch of
the Flavian family had embraced the
Christian faith." ^

' See the writer's book, Neglected Factors in the Study of
the Early Progress of Christianity , pp. 113 fF.
' lUd, p. 124.

THE EARLY CHURCH 169

It was indeed, a difficult situation in
which the Church found itself when hereft
of the teaching and guidance of Christ's
Apostles. The Church had spread widely,
and had struck its roots deeply into society.
But it was helpless and unprotected — a
flock of sheep in the midst of wolves (Matt.
X. 16 ; Acts X. 29). The voices of a Paul,
a Peter, a James, had long been silent ; the
Apostle John alone lingered on till near
the end of the first century. Its new
leaders — many of them, as Clement of
Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, the Martyr,
noble and devoted men — were far inferior
to the Apostles in gifts and spiritual power.
This is manifest in the great drop every one
can discern from the originality and strength
of the books of the New Testament to the
tamer level of the post-apostolic writings —
itself an evidence of the exceptional inspira-
tion and genuineness of the former. Heresies

170 THE EARLY CHURCH

had developed, as the Epistles show (cf.
1 Cor. XV. 12; Col. ii. 8, 18; 1 Tim. i. 19, 20;
vi. 3, 4 ; 2 Tim. ii. 16-18 ; iii. 6-8 ; iv. 3, 4 ;
1 John ii. 18 ; iv. 1-3). Manifold corrup-
tions had found their way into the Churches
(2 Tim. iii. 1-5 ; 2 Pet. ii. ; Jude ; Rev. ii.
20, etc.).

It added to the difficulty that at this
stage the Church was destitute of most of
the aids it afterwards possessed for coping
with opposition and error. Its organisation
was as yet comparatively simple. There
was no formal creed, no recognised canon
of Scripture, no council to which appeal
could be made. In this condition it had to
encounter the brunt of fierce pagan perse-
cutions, and, what was even more formid-
able, the inrush of Gnostic heresy, which
threatened to sweep away the whole historic
faith in a flood of allegorisings and Oriental
speculations. " The crisis," says Dr. Hatch,

THE EARLY CHURCH 171

" was one the gravity of which it would be
difficult to overestimate. There have been
crises since in the history of Christianity,
but there is none which equals in its im-
portance this, upon the issue of which it
depended for all time, whether Christianity
should be regarded as a body of revealed
doctrine, or as the caput mortuum of a
hundred philosophies — whether the basis of
Christianity should be a definite and
definitely interpreted creed, or a chaos of
speculations." ^

III

One of the most interesting things in
the study of early Christianity is to observe
how the Church met the difficulties which
thus gathered thickly around it. Assailed,
persecuted, defamed, one thing it had to
do was to create an Apology — defence ; and

' Organisation of Early Christian Churches, p. 96.

172 THE EARLY CHURCH

here learned men who had been drawn into
its ranks put skilful pens at its service in
refuting calumny and exposing the irration-
alities of paganism. A yet nobler apology
was written in the tears and blood of the
Christians themselves, and in the examples
of beautiful and holy lives they set before
the eyes of the heathen. The new spirit
of self-denying love which Christianity
breathed into the world awoke wonder from
its very strangeness in that ancient society.
It was, however, the great Gnostic con-
troversy, in which, as just said, everything
in Christianity was at stake, which specially
moved the Church to the tasks needful for
the securing of its position and the safety
of the truth.

It was no doubt the difficulties of the
Church's situation which largely aided the
development of the Monarchical Epis-
copacy, which, from the beginning of the

THE EARLY CHURCH 173

second century, we see replacing the older
organisation of " presbyters" and " deacons"
— the former name, as is now commonly
acknowledged, being in the New Testa-
ment used interchangeably with "bishops."^
There was the call for a strong man at the
helm, that the forces of division might be
the more effectively checked. Even in the
time of Ignatius, however, the episcopacy was
still local and congregational. " The primi-
tive Christian bishop," Dr. Gore allows,
"was the pastor of a small flock in many
cases." ^ But the need had early been felt
of having the truths received from the
Apostles committed " to faithful men, who
should be able to teach others also " (2 Tim.
ii. 2). The Church at its core thus re-
mained sound, and substantial guarantees

' The question of apostolic sanction for the change is left
untouched^ as aside from the purpose of these papers.
* Orders and Unity, p 134.

174 THE EARLY CHURCH

were taken for the transmission of a sound
apostolic tradition. This gave rise in the
second century to the idea of a continuous,
historical episcopate, to which was en-
trusted, by divine ordinance, the guardian-
ship and handing down of the truth
(Irenaeus, TertuUian, etc.) — a function
which, in fact, the bishops of that age did
in the main honourably fulfil.

IV

It was still not on the bare word of any
episcopate, however honoured, that the
Church based its confidence in the Christian
facts and doctrines ; bishops and teachers
had themselves to furnish proof of the
soundness of their tradition. This they did
by appeal to the " Rule of Faith " — or form
of public confession — in use in the apostolic
Churches, and to the Apostolic Writings,
which now, under stress of circumstances,

THE EARLY CHURCH 175

began to be gathered into a sacred
" Canon." As yet, with the exception of
the Gospels, which Justin tells us were
read every Sunday in the assemblies of the
Christians,^ and perhaps certain of Paul's
Epistles, these writings had circulated in a
semi-private manner, or only locally. Now
they were brought together — with slight
differences in East and West (only 2 Peter
being wholly wanting) — as inspired produc-
tions, and were stamped as of equal authority
with the Old Testament.' Thus arose the
idea of a New Testament. The Fathers of

' That these Gospek were the same as ours is attested by
Tatian's Diatessaron, now recovered. Tatian was a disciple
of Justin.

* Westcott says : " Of the New Testament, the four Gospels,
the Acts, thirteen Epistles of St. Paul (for the partial
omission of the Epistle to Philemon is obviously accidental),
1 Peter, 1 John were universally received in every Church,
without doubt or limitation, as part of the written rule of
Christian faith, equal in authority with the Old Scriptures
and ratified (as it seemed) by a tradition reaching back to
the days of their composition " {Bible in the Church, p. 133).

176 THE EARLY CHURCH

the close of the second century used these
books as we do ourselves.

This first great service of the Early
Church in giving us a New Testament
Canon of Scripture has to be connected
with the other, in furnishing us with the
original form of what is now known as
the Apostles' Creed. This Creed had its
origin in the form of baptismal confession
in use at Rome, and, in substantial agree-
ment with the Roman, in aU the great
apostolic Churches, as abundantly attested
by the Fathers of the close of the second
and beginning of the third centuries. The
name given to it, the " Rule of Faith,"
indicates the authority with which it had
come to be clothed. It testified to the
unity of belief in the Church, and was
appealed to as a check on the fantastic
allegorical interpretations of Scripture by
the Gnostics. At first a confession of the

THE EARLY CHURCH 177

•

individual, it became, through its employ-
ment, a public Creed of the Church — the
first of all Creeds. The old Roman form
of it goes back to before a.d. 140. It is
a simple statement, in undoctrinal language,
of the great facts and truths of the Christian
religion — specially those connected with the
birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ — and has held its place as a summary
of essential truths till the present hour.

This oldest of Creeds is of peculiar value
in its testimony to the cardinal facts of the
Virgin Birth and the Resurrection of Christ,
in these days so vigorously assailed. There
is no sect or party in the Early Church,
outside the Pharisaic Ebionites (to whom
Jesus was only a man distinguished for
his legal piety), and some of the Gnostics,
which did not accept the article of the Virgin
Birth. It was strenuously defended by all

Church writers.

12

178 THE EARLY CHURCH

V

Mention need only, finally, be made of
the great services rendered by the numerous
writers of the Early Church to the develop-
ment of a sound Christian Theology. The
need of doctrinal statement became urgent
in defence of the truth against various
groups of errorists ; and thus formulas were
slowly developed, which passed later into
the recognised Creeds of the Church. The
writings of the sub-apostolic age (" Apos-
tolic Fathers ") are not marked by a strong
theological ^interest, but one cannot but be
struck by their uniformly high Christology.
The Apologists (Justin Martyr, etc.) give
prominence to the " Logos " or " Word "
of God, who became incarnate in Jesus.
Justin is particularly valuable in the light
he throws on early Christian observances
(Sunday, Christian worship, the Eucharist,

THE EARLY CHURCH 179

etc.). In opposition to the Gnostics, all
the writers defend the true humanity of
Jesus, as well as His essential Godhead.
The third century was marked by the rise
of what are called the " Monarchian "
heresies, in opposition to the doctrine of
the Trinity. Jesus was either a "mere
man" (Artemonites, etc.), or it was the
Father Himself who became incarnate and
suffered in Jesus (Patripassianism), or the
Trinity in God was but successive " modes "
or " aspects " of the one undivided "Monas "
(Sabellianism). Against these errors the
early Catholic writers maintained a vigorous
polemic, with the result that by and by
they were discredited, and set aside as
contrary to the true faith of the Church.
Arianism raised its head in the beginning
of the fourth century, claiming that the
Son, while the highest of created beings,
and God's agent in the creation of the

180 THE EARLY CHURCH

world, was not truly of divine essence or
eternal. This met emphatic condemnation
at the Council of Nicasa in a.d. 325. These
theological gains of the Early Church abide,
and deserve the gratitude of the ages.

PROTESTANTISM AND ROMAN
CATHOLICISM

X

PROTESTANTISM AND ROMAN
CATHOLICISM

/CHRISTENDOM to-day presents a
strangely variegated aspect. There
never, indeed, has been a time when, within
the Church, diverse tendencies did not exist,
leading, in numerous historical instances,
to the rise of communions outside the main
body (Montanists, Donatists, Nestorians,
Monophysites, etc.). The great cleft prior
to the Reformation was that into the
Greek and Latin Churches — the former
rejecting the supremacy of the Pope. Pro-
testant Churches were grouped at first
mainly as " Lutheran " (German) and

183

184 PROTESTANTISM AND

"Reformed" (Swiss), divided principally
on the doctrine of the Supper, on aspects
of the doctrine of Christ's Person, and on
predestination. Since then Protestantism
has developed into a multiplicity of sects
and denominations all but defying com-
putation. The Anglican Church, Pro-
testant in origin, is claimed by some as
a branch of the Catholic Church, distinct
from both Latin and Greek. Still, w^hen
the matter is looked into, the unity in
essential belief in Evangelical Churches is
found to be far greater than might be
inferred from the external divisions (witness
the hymn-books of the Churches) ; and for
practical purposes it will be sufficient to
glance at the two main forms in which
Christianity appears in the countries with
which we are familiar — Protestantism and
Roman Catholicism.

ROMAN CATHOLICISM 185

I

A few words, first, in explanation of the
terms Protestant and Catholic. The word
" Protestant " took its origin fi-om the
celebrated " Protest " of the reforming
members of the Second Diet of Spires,
April 1529, when the attempt was made
to annul hberties conferred by a previous
Diet. Subsequently, on the Decree being
passed, the Protest was issued in a more
formal and expanded shape. Thenceforth
the term became the designation of all
friends of the Reformation, combining the
ideas of a protestation on behalf of Scriptural
truth, and a protest against the errors of
the Church of Rome. The keynote is
struck in words of the original declaration :
"For all who receive, or who shall here-
after receive, the Word of God."

The word " Catholic ' has a more compli-

186 PROTESTANTISM AND

cated history. The attempt to oppose
this word to " Protestant," and to refuse
to Protestants a right to its use, is justly
to be resisted. The term is not found in
the earhest form of the Apostles' Creed,
which reads simply, " The Holy Church." '
In its oldest use — in Ignatius, for example —
" Catholic " meant, as Harnack concedes,
simply " universal." " Where Christ is,"
writes Ignatius, " there is the CathoUc
Church."^ This meaning was never lost.
"The Church of God is caUed Catholic,"
says Cyril of Jerusalem (fourth century), in
an exposition of the Creed, "because she
extends through the whole world, from
the one end to the other." By the end
of the second century a more definite
usage had grown up. " Catholic " denoted

' The Lutheran Church changes the word " Catholic '' in
the Creed to "Christian."
5 " To the Smyrneans," 8.

ROIVIAN CATHOLICISM 187

then, in opposition to heresy and schism,
the Church which, resting on the " Rule
of Faith " (Apostles' Creed), had its unity
in a divinely ordained episcopate— the guar-
dian of the faith and seat of authority
in the Church. By C5'^prian's time, half
a century later (a.d. 250), it had added
to it the notion of the priesthood of the
clergy. Still later came the acknowledg-
ment of the Pope of Rome as the head
of the episcopal organisation. If these
later ideas imported into the term belong
to its essence, the right of Protestants to
its use must be, of course, surrendered.
Since, however, Protestants can go back
to a more fundamental meaning of the
word, which also was its original one in
Church usage, they are plainly not called
on to abandon it because afterwards it
became unscripturally narrowed down.

188 PROTESTANTISM AND

II

The sixteenth-century Reformation may
be described briefly as a revolt in principle
from the whole idea of mediaeval Christianity ;
an attempt to get back to Scriptural
simplicity in doctrine and Church order.
It was a protest against the Papacy —
against its hierarchical system, with the
abuses, corruptions, and intolerable usurpa-
tions that had grown up in connection
with it ; against its monastic system, and
enforced celibacy of the clergy ; against
its doctrinal system — its adding of tradition
to Scripture, its doctrine of the Mass, its
obscuring and perverting of justification
by merging it in baptism, and connecting
it with works ; its doctrines of penance,
indulgences, purgatory, etc. These things,
with the papal claims generally, the Re-
formers swept entirely away, declaring
them to be neither Apostolical, Scriptural,

ROMAN CATHOLICISM 183

nor Primitive, and upholding in their place
the supreme authority and sufficiency of
Holy Scripture, the universal priesthood of
believers, a non-priestly ministry, the lawful-
ness of the marriage of the clergy, justifica-
tion by faith alone, and good vsrorks as the
fruit of faith, not as a cause of salvation.

To judge how far the Reformers were
justified in this uncompromising rejection
of Roman claims and doctrines, it is neces-
sary to look a little more closely at the
nature and grounds of these claivis.

The Roman Church, as built upon the
rock of Christ's promise to St. Peter, " Thou
art Peter," etc. (Matt. xvi. 18), claims to
be one and unchanging, incapable of error
in doctrine, and in the person of its head,
the Pope of Rome, successor of St. Peter,
and Christ's vicegerent on earth, exercising
an unchallengeable supremacy in the
Church, and (were its rights conceded to

190 PROTESTANTISM AND

it) over secular States as well. This, its
fundamental claim, rests on a series of
propositions of the boldest kind. Such
are — that St. Peter was invested by Christ
with a primacy among the Apostles and in
the Church ; that this primacy descended
to successors and continues ; that St. Peter
was the first Bishop of Rome ; that the
Roman bishops are his successors ; that
the succession of these bishops has remained
from the beginning unbroken and inviolate ;
that the Pope, in his official capacity, is
infallible ; that he possesses a temporal as
well as a spiritual supremacy. Claims these,
so vast in their scope as to be well-nigh
unthinkable ; so daring, when read in the
light of the forms they have assumed in
history, as almost to take one's breath away;
so presumptuous that, if not true, they
verge on the blasphemous 1 But are they
justified ?

ROMAN CATHOLICISM 191

III

The claims in question, fortunately, admit
of being brought to the bar of Scripture
and of History, and here, it is plainest fact
to say, they break down utterly. Impartial
interpretation of Christ's promise to St.
Peter in no way upholds the theory of a
general rule of that Apostle over the whole
Church — a rule of which the apostolic
history and Epistles afford not the slightest
ghmpse. St. Peter, in his great confession,
speaks, not for himself, but for the whole
Apostolate. It is not the man, but the
confessing Apostle, to whom the word is
given, "Upon this rock I will build My
Church." The Church was built on the
confession and teaching of the Apostles —
all of them — "Jesus Christ Himself being
the chief comer-stone " (Ephes. ii. 20 ; cf.
1 Cor. iii. 11).

St. Peter, again, may have been at Rome

192 PROTESTANTISM AND

in the very end of his life, and may have
suffered death there ; but that he was ever
" Bishop " of Rome, or in that capacity
exercised any general rule over the Church,
is unhist07'ical fiction. With this falls the
idea of a transmission of authority to
Roman bishops (Popes) in unbroken suc-
cession to the present day. The succession
itself is a fiction (anti-Popes, Papal
Schism). From its political position and
importance the Church at Rome gradually
rose to honour and pre-eminence ; but the
attempts of its bishops in early times to
dominate the Church were strenuously
resisted (e.g., by Iren^us and Cyprian).
The claim to infallibility is a late growth ;
became a " dogma " only in 1870.^ More

' In the Romau Catholic controversies of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries in England it was again and again
declared that " it was not an article of Catholic faith . . .
that the Pope is infallible." Keenan's Catechism, up to its
24th edition, declared this to be " a Protestant invention."

ROMAN CATHOLICISM 193

than one of the Popes was tainted with
heresy. Zephyrinus and Callistus (beginning
of third century) are accused by Hippolytus
at once of doctrinal heresy and of scandalous
laxity in discipline.^ Pope Honorius I.
was condemned and anathematised by the
Sixth Ecumenical Council (a.d. 680) for
holding the Monothelite heresy. Succeed-
ing Popes down to the eleventh century
endorsed this condemnation in an oath at
their accession. The claim to temporal
supremacy rests on equally fictitious founda-
tions (Donation of Constantine ; Forged
Isidorian Decretals).

The whole structure of papal arrogancy
thus falls at the slightest touch of historical
criticism. It is not otherwise with the
doctrinal development — with the changes,
e.g., which multiplied the two simple sacra-
ments of the New Testament into seven,

' Refutation of all Heresies, Book IX.

13

194 PROTESTANTISM AND

and gave them so magical a character ;
which transformed the bread and wine of
the Supper into the Hteral substance of the
body and blood of the Lord ; which con-
verted the ministry of the word of apostolic
times into a " sacrificing priesthood " ; which
made the Lord's table an " altar " on which
the sacrifice of Calvary was reoffered (the
Mass) ; which forbade marriage to priests
and monks ; which evolved the doctrines
of the perpetual virginity, then of the actual
sinlessness, then of the immaculate con-
ception of Mary ; which made her, with
saints and angels, an object of worship ;
which made justification an inward change
accomplished in baptism and completed in
good works ; which, when grace is lost,
elaborated a complicated scheme of penance
for its restoration, aided by indulgences
(application of superfluous merits of the
saints), and by purgatory (a place where

ROMAN CATHOLICISM 195

the balance of temporal penalty is worked
off). Not one of these figments has a
foundation in the teaching of Christ and
His Apostles ; the history of each can be
exactly traced ; the centuries can be pointed
to when they were unknown, and when
their introduction was resisted by Catholic
writers. The Reformers had thus the
amplest justification for their overthrow of
the whole obnoxious system.

IV

The Reformation was not only a conflict
with a vast and powerful hierarchical organi-
sation accustomed to crush out resistance
to its will by relentless persecution — fire,
sword. Inquisition — and an overturning of
mountain-piles of error and superstition,
hoary with the sanction of ages ; it was a
struggle with an appalling moral corruption
in the Church which, though recognised as

196 PROTESTANTISM AND

the crying scandal of the age, nothing
seemed able to stay. " Reform in head
and members " was the watchword of those
who wished for better things. The clamour
was loud for a Council to set things right.
When, later, a Council was got together
— that of Trent — reform was found to be
the last thing it cared to meddle with.

Meanwhile, other influences were slowly
but surely precipitating a change. The
" Revival of Learning " had come ; atten-
tion was being bestowed on the study of
the Scriptures in Hebrew and Greek ; dis-
covery was enlarging men's minds as to
the world around them and the heavens
above them ; printing had furnished a
means for the diffusion of knowledge.
" Renaissance," however, was not yet
" Reformation," nor would it ever of itself
have produced the moral and spiritual
revolution which came from the preaching

ROMAN CATHOLICISM 197

of the truths of a reopened Bible and a
new-found Gospel. While Luther's name
will ever be the foremost in the history of
the Reformation, it should not be forgotten
that God's Spirit was moving, not in
Luther's heart only, but in many hearts in
other lands, and that the Reformation had
not one but several distinct origins. Le
Fevre, in France, and Zwingli, in Switzer-
land, had renounced the Papal errors, and
were preaching a comparatively pure Gospel,
before Luther's name was heard of

V

The two great facts which marked
the Reformation as a spiritual movement
were :

1 . The return to the Holy Scriptures as
the only authoritative standard of faith
and morals in the Church ; and

2. The preaching of the G-ospel of the

198 PROTESTANTISM AND

free grace of God in salvation — the sole
Mediatorship of Christ, justification for
Christ's sake by faith alone, the free grace
of God's Spirit in the work of sanctifica-
tion.

The Reformers exalted the Scriptures.
It was not, as is sometimes said, that they
put an infallible Book in place of an in-
fallible Pope or Church, for the claim they
made for the Bible, as infallibly conveying
to men the Word of God, was no higher
than the claim the Bible made for itself,
or which Christ, the Apostles, and the Early
Church made for it. The Romanists had
no such basis for their doctrine of the
Church.

It was not, however, the Scriptures
simply as a Book, but the Gospel which
the Scriptures contained, which was relied
on as the true " power of God " in over-
throwing the strongholds of evil. Reformers

ROMAN CATHOLICISM ,199

and Romanists alike felt that everything
centred here in the doctrine of justification
by faith. On this, the Council of Trent
declared, all the errors of Luther were
founded. In a statement submitting the
subject to the Council it was pointed out
how, as a consequence of his doctrine,
Luther " had denied the efficacy of the
Sacraments, the authority of Priests, Pur-
gatory, the Sacrifice of the Mass, and all
other remedies instituted for the pardon of
sin — and that, by opposing argument, it
was necessary for the establishment of the
body of the CathoUc doctrine to destroy
this heresy of justification by faith alone,
and to condemn the blasphemies of this
enemy of good works." This, of course,
was not quite the history of the movement ;
but the statement is absolutely correct in
its admission that Luther's doctrine meant
logically the annihilation of Rome's whole

200 PROTESTANTISM— ROMAN CATHOLICISM

doctrinal and sacramental system. Hence
the importance which Luther rightly at-
tached to justification as the article of a
standing and falling Church. It is a reason
why we of later days also should attach
importance to it. So long as Protes-
tantism remains faithful to this doctrine,
its position is secure. When it weakens
it or departs from it, its power will depart
also.

CHRISTIANITY AJSTD MODERN SCIENCE

XI

CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE

rriHE idea prevails in many quarters that
the immense advances in the natural
sciences since inductive inquiry began have
led to an altered view of the world and
man, which takes the foundations from
Christian beliefs on these subjects, and
renders the whole Christian scheme of
things untenable.

1

Certainly nothing could be more amazing
than the progress made during the last few
centuries in man's knowledge of nature,
and mastery of its laws and forces. The
effect has been a revolution in the con-
ception of the universe which leaves nothing

203

204 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE

untouched. The idea of our globe as the
centre round which the heavens move has
vanished. In extension in space, as in
duration in time, the universe is seen to
be practically illimitable. The earth was
not created six thousand years ago, but has
a geological history going back perhaps fifty
or a hundred millions of years. Man, too, is
older by millenniums — some would say by
tens or hundreds of millenniums — than we
had been accustomed to believe. The ex-
cavations in Babylonia and Egypt reveal
an immensely remote antiquity of civilisa-
tion. Then there is the rise and universal
extension of the idea of " evolution." Does
not this overthrow the Bible account of
the origin of man ? A yet more fatal effect
of the progress of science is thought to be
the establishment of the idea of the reign
of universal law. With this, do not miracles
disappear ?

CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 205

Admittedly the change is great, but we
are a long way still from the conclusion
that the foundations of Christianity are
overturned, or that there is any necessary
conflict between science and the facts and
doctrines of revelation. The question of
miracle was dealt with in a previous paper,
and it was there shown that no view of
the universe which grants its origin from,
and dependence on, a living Personal
God, can ever legitimately deny the
possibility of an economy of revelation,
connected with supernatural interpositions,
for higher ends than those which nature
can attain. The relation of Christianity to
the truths of science may now be looked
at more precisely.

II

It is desirable, first, to set the con-
sideration of the subject in its proper light

206 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE

by removal of misconceptions. These exist,
both on the side of defenders of the Bible,
and on the side of science.

The day is happily almost past when
men looked on the Bible as a sort of
anticipative text-book of natural science.
When Copernicus affirmed that the earth
was not the centre of the universe ; that it
was the earth that moved round the sun,
and not the sun that moved round the
earth, it was thought sufficient in order to
confute him to quote texts like Psalm
xix. 5, 6, where the sun is described as
performing his circuit in the heavens.
VN'^hen geology was proving that the earth
had a long and interesting history, the
stages of which were embodied in the
rocks, Genesis i. was relied on to show that
everything was made in six ordinary days
about six thousand years ago. The mis-
takes were perhaps natural ; they none the

CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 207

less rested on an erroneous view of the
relation of Scripture to science, and did
harm to Christianity by seeking to bind it
up with positions that could not be main-
tained. This teaches a lesson of caution
in opposing the Bible to science. It is
now getting to be well understood, what
the wiser interpreters of Scripture have
always maintained, that the Bible was
not given to anticipate modern physical
discoveries, but uses plain, popular lan-
guage in speaking of natural phenomena,
describing things by their appearances — not
from a scientific standpoint — as we still do
in our almanacs when we speak of the
sun and moon " rising " and " setting."
Calvin, in the sixteenth century, put this
very clearly in his commentary on Genesis.
" He who would learn astronomy and other
recondite arts," he wrote, " let him go else-
where. . . . Moses wrote in a popular style

208 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE

things which, without instruction, all ordi-
nary persons endued with common sense
are able to understand. . . . He does not
call us up to heaven, he only proposes
things that lie open before our eyes." The
purpose of the Bible was different — to set
things in their right relation to God, the
first Cause of all ; to show what God is,
and what are His purposes and will for
man. In this, its proper sphere, there is
no conflict with science.

But science, too, has its lesson of caution
■ and humility to learn. Everything is not
science which chooses to call itself science.
Rash theories have often been propounded
which further inquiry has discredited ; ex-
travagant claims have often been made which
have had afterwards to be retracted. The
progress of knowledge itself is continually
modifying or enlarging scientific concep-
tions, so that the knowledge of to-day is

CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 209

by no means the measure of the science
of to-morrow. A quarter of a century
ago science was decidedly materialistic in
its bent. Even Prof. Huxley, who was
not, philosophically, a materialist, insisted
on interpreting mental facts in terms of
matter. He declared : " As surely as every
future grows out of past and present, so
will the physiology of the future extend
the realm of matter and law till it is co-
extensive with knowledge, with feeling, and
with action." ^ It can safely be said that
this phase is passing away, and is being
replaced by a more spiritual view of the
universe. Haeckel acknowledges in his
Riddle that most of his former stalwarts
(Virchow, Du Bois Reymond, Wundt, etc.)
subsequently deserted him. Darwinism at
first thought to get rid of " teleology "—of
design — in nature, but it will be found that

2 On the Physical Basis of Life.

14

210 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE

this is precisely one of the points where
the newer evolution breaks with the old.
Enormous periods have been postulated for
man's duration on the earth, but these are
being retrenched by more accurate observa-
tions of the time since the close of the
Glacial Age. If Oriental discovery has led
to surprising modification in older views of
the age of ancient civilisation, its service
has been not less conspicuous in the light
it has thrown on the high character of early
civilisations, and in the corroborations it has
furnished of statements in the early pages
of the Bible which had been long disputed.

Ill

In its older phases the controversy be-
tween the Bible and science had chiefly to
do with astronomy and geology.

There was the astronomical objection to
Christianity which Dr. Chalmers and others

CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 211

ably combated. The extension of view
involved in the Copernican theory of the
heavens was thought by many to render
impossible the belief that the world — a
mere speck in infinity — should be the
special object of God's love and care; the
scene of an Incarnation and work of
redeeming grace such as the Christian
religion affirms. Few Christians to-day
feel much force in this objection. God's
love is not on the scale of quantitative
bigness. God is present in the atom and
the animacule as truly as in suns and
stars. He cares for the sparrow in its fall,
as well as presides over the fates of empires.
Man is not less the object of God's love
because he may not be the only object.
God had always in Christian belief been
held to be infiinite, with a universe of
intelligent spirits adoring and serving Him.
His love to man in redemption is not

212 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE

contradicted, but is infinitely enhanced by
every fresh demonstration of His majesty
and power. A further question, however,
is, Does science show that man's place in
the universe is less unique than the Bible
represents it to be ? The thought of the
universe in space is inconceivably enlarged ;
but are we brought any nearer to the proof
of hosts of inhabited worlds and planets ?
It is very doubtful. So far as scienti-
fic knowledge goes, our earth remains
the only spot in the material creation
in which intelligent and moral life has
emerged.^

It is not otherwise with the difficulties
in regard to the geological revelations of
the age of the earth. However Genesis i.
is to be interpreted — whether, as seems
probable, its days are "asonic," great divi-
sions in the creative work (the first three

' See Wallace's Man's Plate in the Universe.

CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE ^3

" days " precede the sun's measurement),
or belong simply to the representation of
the creation under the form of a divine
" week " of work — one cannot but see the
sublimity of its description of the origin
of all things in comparison with heathen
cosmogonies ; must recognise, too, under
divergencies of aim and form, the substantial
accord of the ideas embodied in it with
what reason and science unite to affirm.
How grand and important are these ideas !
— the creation of all things by the one true
God, the gradual progress from lower to
higher, the order of the stages — the settling
of the earth, plant and water creations,
birds, appointment of sun and moon, mam-
mals, the culmination of the whole process
in man I Science gives precision to these
conceptions, but does not alter their essential
truth.

214 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE

IV

The scientific theory which, in recent
times, presents most appearance of conflict
with Christianity is Darwinian evolution.
Darwin's great achievement was in winning
for the theory of organic descent a general
scientific acceptance which it did not before
possess. Not only were the facts in support
of evolution more skilfully marshalled, but
a theory — that of *' natural selection " — was
propounded, which seemed to explain the
process.^ The consequences were far-reach-
ing. Through the operation of a few simple
laws, selecting and preserving variations
favourable to individuals and species, the
adaptations of which nature is full were
thought to be accounted for without the
interposition of mind or purpose. Man
came under the general rule, and was held

' Darwin rested his special claim on his supposed discovery
of the " how " of the development.

CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 215

to be a slow development from simian
ancestors. It is not necessary to break with
the general doctrine of descent to recognise
the defects of the Darwinian presentation
of it. Darwinism and evolution are not
synonymous. A considerable revolt has
taken place in evolutionist circles from the
idea of " natural selection," slowly operating,
as the main factor in evolution. Confession
is frankly made that the main factors are
yet to seek, and must he within the organism,
not in external causes. The idea of fortuity
is being abandoned, and in one form or
another there is recognition of the fact that
nature works towards an end.^ The process,
too, is not always slow and gradual, but
is often rapid, the result of sudden change
(" mutation ").

• For the extent of these changes in evolutionary theory,
see Otto's Naturalism and Beligien, in the "Crown Theo-
logical Library."

216 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE

With such modifications, most of the
aspects of conflict of evolution with Theism,
and even with Christianity, are removed.
The one thing evolution cannot do is to
explain origins. The first origin of things ;
the origin of life and sentiency ; the origin
of rational intelligence — these remain for it
insoluble problems. It may be claimed
that, with our present knowledge, there
is nothing to hinder that man, ^svhatever
the part of evolution in his origin, may
have appeared on earth as a new tjrpe of
being, pure in nature, made in God's image,
destined for sonship to God, immortal in
destiny. This is what Christianity affirms,
and no science which knows its own
limits will contradict it. With the change
fi*om infinitesimaUy gradual evolution to
" mutation " theories, there is no need, even
for carrying man's origin back many millen-
niums beyond the usual computation.

CHRISTIANITY AKD MODERN SCIENCE 217

In brief, it may be confidently claimed
that science does not in any serious way
collide with the presuppositions of the
Christian faith. In many ways it may and
does enlarge our notions ; it does not destroy
a single postulate of our religion.

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK

XIl

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK

TT is never easy to forecast a future. In
nature one can calculate with a
certainty almost unerring the movements
of the heavenly bodies, the date of an
ecUpse, the reappearance of a comet. The
uniformity of nature's laws enables us to
rely on sunrising and sunsetting, on ebb
and flow of tides, on the general procession
of the seasons. But even science can only
predict the future within limits, and in
many departments cannot certainly predict
beyond a few days or hours. " The wind
bloweth where it will, and thou hearest
the voice thereof, but knowest not whence

221

222 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK

it Cometh and whither it goeth" (John vi. 8).
Unforeseen influences may change seasons
in the future, as they have changed them
in the past. Arctic cold may prevail where
warmth now reigns ; the sun itself may one
day be extinguished.

I

In human life the conditions which de-
termine a future are still moo-e complicated
and difficult to unravel. Few who live in
a given age are able to estimate rightly the
forces which openly or secretly are working
to change the character of that age. Hence
the most diverse interpretations put upon
the same class of phenomena by different
observers. In minds of a serious type the
tendency is to take a dark view of the
course of events, and to contrast un-
favourably the present with the past. The
old Egyptian moralist, Ptah-hotep, who

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 223

wrote in the age of the Pyramids (about 3000
B.C.), appeals, as men do still, to the ancients,
and bemoans the degeneracy of the times.
Minds of a more optimistic temperament
see everywhere signs of advancement. The
eighteenth century was an age of superficial
optimisms, and they ended in the great
disillusionment of the French Revolution.
In contrast with the eighteenth, the nine-
teenth century developed its vast systems
of philosophical pessimism. Where religious
faith is parted with, the tendency in all
times is towards hopelessness. Goethe,
usually optimistic, gave it as his opinion
that men would become more clever and
acute, but not better, happier, stronger in
action, at least only in epochs.' Renan
said : " Candidly speaking, I fail to see
how, without the ancient dreams, the
foundations of a happy and noble life are

' Eckermann's Conversations (E.T.); p. 346.

224 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK

to be relaid."^ Professor Huxley wrote
despondingly : "I know of no study which
is so unutterably saddening as that of the
evolution of humanity, as it is set forth
in the annals of history. . . . And the best
men of the best epochs are simply those
who make the fewest blunders and commit
the fewest sins." ^ Herbert Spencer, at one
stage, was confident of an " evanescence of
evil " ^ through evolution ; in his Auto-
biography he ends on a gloomier key.

At the present moment we have both
optimists and pessimists, but the tone that
prevails in sceptical circles is stiU, as always,
predominatingly pessimistic. There is much
talk of " disillusionments," of extinct en-
thusiasms, of the death of ideals. The
term "Jin de siicle " has been invented to

' Preface to L'Avenir de la Science.

" " Agnosticism," Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1889.

^ Social Statics, p. 79.

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 225

express the feeling. In truth, there is no
real ground for faith in progress, or hope
for the removal of the world's e\als, without
the belief in God and in a Gospel of re-
demption, such as many of our would-be
intellectual teachers are turning their backs
on. One of the most depressing books of
modern times is Max Nordau's volume on
Degeneration. After a series of realistically
drawn pictures of the phases of degeneracy
in our age, the author has a chapter called
"Prognosis," io which he almost despairs
of a remedy, but stays himself on the faith
that evolution has not yet exhausted itself,
and wiU ultimately eliminate the unfit ; or,
if civilisation prove too much for society,
the world can give it up !

II

The Hebrew prophets are splendid ex-
amples of how faith in a God of righteous-

15

226 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK

ness, and in His living presence and work
in history, can lift men above the mists
of doubt and error that blot the very sun
in the heavens from their sight ! If God
is in His heaven, then all is surely well!
In no nation but the prophets' own was
the true God known. It was at a time
also when everything in the history of
their nation was against them, when God's
purposes seemed breaking down in failure,
when their land was overrun by the in-
vader, when, later, the Temple was in ruins
and the people in exile, that the voice of
the prophets was lifted in inextinguishable
confidence that God's promises would be
fulfilled, that His Kingdom would come,
and that the religion of Jehovah would
become . the religion of the whole earth 1
The Apostles, again, how impossible it
seemed on that day when Jesus hung upon
the Cross that His religion would ever

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 227

become the world-wide power it now un-
doubtedly is ! Yet the faith of Christ's
disciples never faltered from the day of
His resurrection, and does not falter yet
in spite of the obstacles that oppose them-
selves to the advancement of His re-
ligion.

To put the matter in a sentence, it is
not from human deductions of the probable
course of events in the future, but from
firm faith in God, and in the Gospel of
His Son, that assurance of the final victory
of the truth is to be gained. If God
reigns ; if He is holy, righteous, good ; if
His revealed will is that righteousness shall
prevail over sin ; if moral law can be relied
on to work out its issues as certainly as
natural law ; if there are Divine powers
in the world proceeding from the exalted
Christ, more potent than aU the forces
than can be arrayed against them — then

228 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK

but one result can follow, however long
and perplexed the road may be by which
the goal is reached. Times and seasons
the Father has kept in His own power
(Acts i. 7), but the event is sure. The
first thing is to be " stabhshed, strength-
ened, settled" (1 Pet. v. 10) in the faith
that is in Christ ; the cross-currents of
modern speculation and denial will then
no longer vex us. This is the true attitude
of the " modern " Christian, as it has been
that of the Christian in all past ages.

Ill

It is not the case, as unbelief would have
us think, that the currents of the age are
all flowing in one direction. God is shaking
all things in heaven and earth, but the
things that cannot be shaken "remain"
(Heb. xii. 26, 27). God remains, the Bible

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 229

remains, Christ remains, the sin and need
of the world remain, the Gospel as God's
provision for that need remains. It is the
purest of delusions to imagine that any
one of these things is going to be left
behind in the world's march of progress.
What has the world to substitute for them ?
We speak sometimes of a " modern view "
of the world, but there is in truth no one
" modem view " on which the thinkers who
use this language are agreed. Their creeds
are as hostile and mutually exclusive — they
are as much at war about them among
themselves — as it is possible to imagine.
The voices of the age are a Babel. Over
against their discord stands the one un-
changing testimony which Peter gave at
Cassarea Philippi when confronted with the
Babel of the voices of his age : " Thou
art the Christ, the Son of the hving God "
(Matt. xvi. 16). On that testimony, borne

230 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK

by believing men, Christ felt He had found
a rock on which to build a Church. The
Church will endure so long as it keeps to
this one foundation.

The currents of the time are not, as
alleged, all anti-Christian. There is a
powerful drift setting in towards the recog-
nition of a spiritual basis of the universe,
towards the acknowledgment of a personal,
an acting, a seK-revealing God. That can
only have its issue in the recognition of
Christ as the unique Revealer ; then as
God's own Son manifest in the flesh. The
stars may disappear for a time in the
heavens ; when the clouds clear away they
shine out again as of old.

IV

Much is heard in these days of a "re-
construction " of Christian doctrine. Not a

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 331

word is to be said against any attempt to
restate truth in the forms most adapted
to the intelligence and culture of the time.
Only one would wish to know what "re-
construction," in this connection, is taken
to cover, and how far, under this specious
term, abandonment of vital truth is not
contemplated. Is the " reconstruction," e.g.,
to leave out miracle ? Is it to leave out
a real Incarnation, giving us as Redeemer
only an ideal man ? Is it to leave out the
Virgin Birth and the bodily Resurrection ?
Is it to leave out a " Fall," and substitute
for it the evolutionary doctrine of man as
a creature who is rising ? Is it to leave
out "Atonement" — the dying for sins, the
just for the unjust ? (1 Pet. iii. 18). Is it
to leave out a supernatural Regeneration ?
If this is so, it is a " reconstruction " with
which genuine Christianity can have nothing
to do.

232 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK

The present writer has been led to ponder
this subject from many sides, and would
only, in closing, bear his personal testimony
that he does not know a single one of the
great doctrines which Protestant Churches,
reverting to Scripture as a basis, have
generally accepted, which Christian faith is
called to part with in the future. There
is a unity in the faith which secures that,
even if lost sight of for a time, essential
doctrines will eventually reassert themselves.
The " Fall " is put in question by evolution ;
but unless sin is made a necessity, and
deprived of its heinousness before God,
which made redemption needful, its origin
must ever be sought in the voluntary de-
parture from rectitude of a creature who
had the power to live obediently. The
Trinity is called " metaphysical " ; but we
cannot be faithful to the revelation in the
Gospel if we fail to recognise in it a God

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 233

subsisting and revealed, in the words of
the baptismal confession, as Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. The trend of the "New
Theology " is to humanitarianism in Christ-
ology ; but the Church, so long as it adheres
to the faith of the Apostles, will never,
we may be sure, depart from its testimony
to its Lord as perfect God and perfect
man — the Word made flesh. There are all
sorts of speculations on the Atonement,
but any " moral " theory which denies the
true vicarious death, and atoning, cleansing
power of the blood of Christ, will never
satisfy the conscience or faith of the general
Christian community or furnish an Evangel
to preach to the masses. "Justification"
is thought to be a " forensic " term, but it
can never be twisted to mean anything but
what it signifies in Paul— a setting right
with God through His own free act of
pardon and acceptance for Christ's sake.

234 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK

There are eschatologies innumerable ; but
while the mysteries of the future are ac-
knowledged, we have no expectation of seeing
the Church commit herself to either uni-
versahsm or annihilation, or even make a
dogma of second probation. Let veUs he
where Scripture leaves them.

The ground for the confidence that these
truths wUl abide simply is that they are
there in the Bible, and that the world cannot
do without them. The teachers of our
new theologies are never under a greater
mistake than when they imagine that it is
the preaching of this old Gospel of the
grace of God — old, yet ever new — which
is alienating the modern world from the
Churches. It is not the preaching of this
Gospel which is emptying the churches, but
the want of it. No ; the counsel of God
stands, and the indispensableness of the
truths of the Evangel of the New Testament

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 235

will be felt the more strongly the longer
they are considered.

" Now unto the King Eternal, incorrup-
tible, invisible, the only God, be honour
and glory for ever and ever. Amen "
(1 Tim. i. 17).

INDEX

Apologists, 171-2, 178
Arianism, 179-80
Astronomical objection, 206,

210-12
Atonement, of Christ, 129,

131 ff., 161-2, 231, 233

Baur, 42
Boosset, 56, 87

Campbell, R. J., 91
Canon of N.T., 47 ff., 174^6
Catholicism, Roman, the
term Catholic, 185-7 ;
papal claims, 188 ff. ; al-
leged primacy of St. Peter,
189 ff. ; papal infallibility,
192-3 ; doctrinal errors,
193 ff. ; sixteenth-century
revolt from, 188 ff., 195 ff.
Christ. See Jesus Christ
Church, founded by Christ,

1C3 ff. ; function of, 166-7 ;
relation to Kingdom, 166 ;
Early Church — successes
of, 167 ; trials and diffi-
culties of, 169 ff. ; services
of, 171 ff.

Creed, Apostles', 176, 187 ;
Nicene, 180

Criticism, of O.T., 22-3
28-31, 32-4; of Gospels,
40 ff. ; denial of miracle in,
26, 43 ff., 61-2, 82, 97,
123-4, 136, 177, 231

Cross, significance of, 122,
126 ff. ; Christ's anticipa-
tion of, 127-8 ; place in
Gospels, 125-7, 149 ; re-
lation to redemption, 129
ff., 149-50; apostolic doc-
trine of, 161 ff.

Dale, Dr., 102, 126
Darwinism. See Evolution
Deuteronomy, 34

237

238

INDEX

EerdmanSj 23

Episcopacy, Monarchical,

172 ff.
Eschatology, 117, 234
Evolution, 20-t ; Darwinian

theory of, 209, 214-15;

limits of, 216 ; relation to

Christianity, 214-16, 231

Fall, the, 114, 232

Geology and Genesis, 212-13
Gnosticism, 170-1, 177
God, relation to nature and
miracle, 8, 9, 65 ff., 208;
in revelation, 7ff., 28 ff.,
72 ff., 225 ff. ; Christ's
teaching on, 112
Goethe, 223
Gore, Dr., 173
Gospels, Modern Criticism
of, 40 ff. ; historical witness
for, 47 ff ; internal credi-
hility of, 63 ff. ; image of
Christ in, 64-5 ; critical
denial of miracle in, 43
ff. ; Fourth Gospel, 49,
56 ff.

Haeckel, 209
Harnack, 60
Huxley, 209, 224

Incarnation, attacks on, 82-3 ;
meaning of, 94 ff. ; proof
of, 93-4 ; metaphysical
view of, 90-1 ; evolutionary
view of, 91-2

Jesus Christ, modem views
of, 44, 82-3 ; picture in
Gospels, 54, 85 ff. ; in-
carnate, 81 ff., 94 ff. ; goal
of revelation, 105 ; virgin
hirth, 76, 83, 86, 97-8;
resurrection, 44, 71, 75,
77,89,94, 121 ff. ; Parousia,
117-18 ; Kenosis, 95 ; re-
lation to O.T., 104 ff. ; re-
lation to St. Paul, 141 ff.
See Teaching of Jesus

John, St., Gospel of, 49, 55
ff. ; last of Apostles, 169

Kingdom of God, Christ's
teaching on. 111, 160 ff. ;
relation to Church, 143,
166

Law and prophets, 32 ff.
Levitical code, 32-4

Man, Christ's teaching on,
113 ; evolution and, 204

INDEX

239

Mill, J. S., 53-4

Miracle, disbelief in, 8, 10,
26, 43 fF. ; objections to,
63 ff. ; nature of, 56, 67
ff. ; possibility of, 65 ff. ;
evidence for, 9, 71 ff., 76 ;
evidential value of, 77-8 ;
in Christianity, 231

Nietzsche, 106
Nordau, Max, 225

Old Testament, essential
problem of, 21, 24 ; super-
natural revelation in, 26
ff. ; inspiration of, 35-6 ;
relation of Jesus to, 104 ff.

Organic unity of Scripture,
11 ff. ; ofO. T., 31 ff.

Paul, St., relation to Jesus,
141 ff. ; alleged couflict
with Gospels, 142 ff. ; ex-
aggeration of contrasts,
148 ff. ; Master and apostle,
152 ff. ; alleged Rabbinism
of, 143, 155 ff.

Pessimism, 222 ff.

Prophets, the, 30, 36, 225-6
Protestantism, meaning of
word, 183 ; revolt against
Papacy, 188 ff. ; principles
of, 197 ff.

Reformation, sixteenth cen-
tury, 188 ff. ; origins of,
197 ff. See Protestantism.

Renan, 223.

Resurrection, of Christ, 44,
75, 77, 89, 94, 121 ff., 123,
135-6 ; place in Christi-
anity, 135, 231 ; evidence
for, 136 ff.

Revelation, reality of super-
natural, 7, 8, 10; evidence
for, 9, 10 ; supremely in
Christ, 39

Romanes, G. J., 101

Sacred books, pagan, 3 ff
See Scriptures.

Science, alleged conflict with
Scripture, 203 ff. ; relation
of Bible to, 205 ff. ; astro-
nomical objection, 206, 210
ff. ; geological objections,
233 ff. ; evolution and
Christianity, 216, 232.

240

ENDEX

Scriptures, Holy, compared
with other sacred hooka,
3, 4, 7, 10, 11, 17 ; super-
natural revelation in, 6,
7ff., 26ff. ; purpose of
grace in, 11 ff., 31 ff. ;
inspiration of, 15 S., 25,
35-6.

Sin, Christ's teaching on, 113 ;
the FaU, 114, 232.

Stade, on prophets, 30

Strauss, 42.

Teaching of Jesus, 101 ff. ;
loftiness and originality of,
106 ff. ; inversion of values
in, 106, 108 ff. ; on wealth,
109-10 ; on God, 112 ; on
man, 112-13 ; on sin, 113-

14 ; on salvation, 115,

126-7 ; on the world, 115 ;

on the Kingdom, 116-17;

on the future, 117-18.
Teleology in Scriptures, 11.

See Scriptures.
Trinity, 87 ff.

Virgin Birth, 75, 83, 86, 97-8

Wealth, Christ's teaching on,

109-10
Wellhausen, 22
Westcott, 49, 176
Winckler, 23

Zahn, 51

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